E-commerce is booming but to stand out, you need to think out of the box. Here are some inspiring female e-commerce entrepreneurs who have innovated and built successful e-commerce businesses, plus their advice and incredible insights.
Female Ecommerce Entrepreneurs
Here are some of the most successful women in e-commerce, their humble beginnings, and inspiring stories.
Female Ecommerce Entrepreneurs in Clothing
1. Alexa Suter, founder of Huha
From exploring Europe solo and starting her successful blog to becoming BC Business’s top 30 Under 30 winner after starting Huha – Alexa has always had a deep desire to create and solve problems.
Huha was born out of her own discomfort when wearing ill-fitting synthetic underwear. By combining natural materials with an inclusive approach, her clothing e-commerce brand has become widely loved – who wouldn’t love a sustainable and women-owned brand?
Her ecommerce brand’s success is her unique product, harnessing the power of social media, and using the platform to empower and connect with their customers in an intimate way.
2. Susan Gregg Koger, Founder of ModCloth
Image by Courtesy Company
Susan is one of the greatest e-commerce success stories and started the whimsical online retailer, Modcloth.
In college, her vintage clothing collection grew from the dorm room to the board room, where she began to sell some one-of-a-kind thrifted clothes online. To scale their retro style, they found designers to match their niche. After reaching $1 million in sales, investors got on board, accelerating their success.
Susan Gregg Koger attributes a lot of her success to being a rookie. She had never worked in retail or the fashion industry so she changed the process of choosing what to stock. Customers became the buyers, leaving detailed reviews, and giving their input on what should be stocked. Community is at the core of ModCloth’s success.
“Approaching a problem from a rookie point of view enables you to innovate just because you don’t how it’s usually done,” she says.
Recommended Reading: The Best Business Books for Women in 2024
3. Rachel Lim, Founder of Love, Bonito
Love, Bonito is one of the fastest-growing womenswear in Southeast Asia. At 19 years old, Rachel Lim started a fashion blog shop, selling preloved clothes with some university friends. It is now a multimillion-dollar fashion empire and a successful clothing e-commerce brand.
She realized no Western brands catered to Asian women’s sizes. Her passion project transformed into a line of clothes built on practicality, femininity, and Asian women’s sizes. The brand has grown from a purely e-commerce operation to an influencer-led community.
Her clothing brand has been built on female staples and women empowerment, immediately capturing and holding people’s attention, making Rachel Lim an inspiring female e-commerce entrepreneur.
Recommended reading: 15 Women in Business Podcasts That You Need to Download in 2024
4. Nomvuyo Treffers, owner of Swimma
After searching for a swimming cap for big hair, Nomvuyo Treffers realized they didn’t exist. She began to design and make her own swimming caps. Two years later, she now runs a successful e-commerce business, selling her caps in both the US and UK, Uganda, Kenya, Botswana, South Africa, and Namibia.
She first tweeted about her product and after getting a great response, she knew that she had touched upon an unmet need, especially for women with curly hair and weaves.
Her brand’s success lies in innovation, inclusion, and equal representation.
Female Ecommerce Entrepreneurs in Food
1. Jash Mehta, Founder of Pop & Bottle
Jash Mehta moved from London to California and was struck by the farm-to-table eating that was not present in London at the time. During a morning coffee ritual with her best friend, she felt frustrated by the lack of real, raw, and organic ingredients in supermarket-bought coffee.
Que the food e-commerce business, Pop & Bottle – oat milk lattes with organic and raw ingredients with no refined sugar in a bottle. Women-founded and women-led, Pop and Bottle is shaking up the coffee industry in the best way possible.
Jash Mehta says being naive helped her to take risks and come up with fresh ideas and the new perspectives helped grow Pop & Bottle – bringing wellness and taste to the convenience coffee movement.
2. Denise Woodard, Founder of Partake Foods
Inspired by her daughter’s food allergies, Denise Woodard started her allergy-free cookies – Partake. According to Inc, Denise is the first Black woman to raise more than $1 million publicly for a Consumer Packaged Good food startup.
She attributes her success to hard work, seeing her dad go from being a truck driver to owning his own fleet of trucks, and her love for her daughter, which helped her become a disruptor.
She said to grow her e-commerce business, she focused on building a high-quality product and building a loyal emailing list.
Female Ecommerce Entrepreneurs in Jewelry
1. Jenn Low, founder of Wanderlust + Co
Gigi Hadid, Selena Gomez, Jessica Alba, and Kendall Jenner have all worn Jean Louw’s critically acclaimed brand, Wanderlust + Co.
While studying, Jean Louw realized that there wasn’t any affordable jewelry that looked luxurious. So she created a digital jewelry brand from her flat in Melbourne, Australia, that is trendy and affordable.
She grew her jewelry e-commerce business by focusing on her website sales and growing her traffic significantly over the years. She attributes her success to trust in her team and herself, her creativity, and her grit.
Female Ecommerce Entrepreneurs in Skincare, Lifestyle, and Wellness
1. Marcia Kilgore, Founder of Beauty Pie
If you don’t know Marcia Kilgore, you should. She is one of the greatest female serial entrepreneurs and is the founder of iconic brands including Beauty Pie, Soap & Glory, FitFlop, and more.
Kilgore says that she makes things that she would want to buy and encourages us to read a business book, Purple Cow – imploring us to really think about our product. She loves building, creating, and solving problems – making it unsurprising that she is on her 5th business.
Her e-commerce brand, Beauty Pie solves a unique problem: the beauty industry can charge up to 12x what it costs to make a product. She was tired of the markups so she created a luxury beauty buyers’ club that sells its own skincare and products at “factory cost” prices in the US and UK for an annual fee of $59.
She revolutionized the beauty e-commerce industry through her subscription-based e-commerce business, and it has been dubbed the “Netflix of beauty.”
2. Gretta van Riel, founder of SkinnyMe Tea
Australian female e-commerce entrepreneur, Gretta van Riel, started her first business, SkinnyMe Tea at 22 which grew from zero to 600K a month. She went on to build other successful brands including The 5th watches.
She started making detox teas for her friends and realized they loved it but she didn’t know how to charge people. So she googled, “how to create an online store,” opened up a Shopify blog, and later went on to win an award from Shopify.
Her first e-commerce business’s success lies in social media and using influencers, using the business model-centric economy of Instagram and her own influential Instagram account.
3. Rosie Jane Johnston, Founder of By Rosie Jane
Rosie Jane Johnston is a former celebrity makeup artist who realized that she couldn’t find what she wanted and started building her own cosmetic product. Her startup failed, so she pivoted and started a perfume line that turned into a seven-figure brand.
Read about 9 Fatal Startup Mistakes and Woman Who Made Them
Johnston started to sell what she knew and used every day – her custom blend fragrance. She started small and local, cold calling and using uncomplicated packaging to save costs.
Her secrets to success lie in learning along the way and her simple yet stunning product.
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4. Alex Friedman and Jordana Kier, Founders of Lola
Image Courtesy of LOLA
Founded by women and for women, Lola makes period and sexual wellness products for women.
Lola started as Alex Friedman and Jordana Kier’s passion project, after feeling frustrated by the lack of transparency and awareness around what was in women’s tampons due to FDA regulations. They decided to create high-quality, clean, and transparent products.
They started by encouraging conversations about women’s intimate health, hosting focus groups, and the conversation (and their unique brand) grew from there.
Their biggest advice is to focus on every day steps and realize that nothing is as scary as it seems – go for it and get the conversation started.
Recommended reading: 15 Effective Confidence-building Exercises for Women
4. Lindsay McCormick, Founder of Bite Toothpaste Bits
Imagine a zero-waste tooth, eco-friendly toothpaste.
Lindsay McCormick is a former surfer who wanted to change that one billion plastic toothpaste tubes end up in the ocean and landfill each year.
She took chemistry courses and learned how to press toothpaste tablets for her friend and started selling her own toothpaste from her apartment. She soon realized that she couldn’t keep up with the demand, and outsourced her manufacturing.
Bite is now a subscription-based e-commerce brand that has gone viral, and for good reason. Her company now has a full oral care range and is a certified B-Corp. She molded a thriving company around her passion and purpose.
Other Types of Female Ecommerce Entrepreneurs
1. Desriee Asomuyide, owner of Little Omo
After being gifted flashcards with little to no diversity on them, Desriee Asomuyide didn’t want her son to grow up feeling underrepresented. She decided to make her own. The company launched in 2020 and has grown its range to include puzzles, books, and posters featuring children from all ethnic backgrounds.
Desriee Asomuyide used her design, sketching, and editing skills from her fashion degree to start creating her products. She wants to teach children about different cultures and inspire curiosity. She continues to grow her educational e-commerce brand globally today.
“I found that there was a lack of representation within toys and learning materials in the UK and realised there was a gap in that industry but also the education industry as well,” says Desriee Asomuyide.
Read Our Q&A With Entrepreneur Broadening Little Minds, Desriee Asomuyide
2. Michele Ferron, Founder of Good Tuesday
Image Courtesy of Good Tuesday
Get organized – in full color. Michele Ferron’s Good Tuesday sells beautiful calendars and planners that not only look aesthetic but can make organizing fun.
During lockdown, she started designing her own birthday calendars and putting them on Etsy, where they proved to be widely popular – it was featured in the Etsy newsletter. She went on to invest in her own Shopify platform to scale her e-commerce business.
“A non-negotiable in my routine that keeps me focused is planning on paper—writing things down,” says Michele Ferron.
For more advice, read our Q&A With Etsy E-commerce Entrepreneur, Michele Ferron
She capitalized on the shift in the stationary business towards functional yet beautiful stationery that is also eco-conscious and supports durable buying habits. Today, she focuses on making her business as sustainable as possible, from its environmental approach to a people-first culture.
Recommended Reading: 28 Gifts for Female Entrepreneurs That Don’t Suck
4. Elise Pioch, Founder of Maison Balzac
What started as a collection of five perfumed candles has become a homeware world of its own.
Elise Pioch wanted to capture the sense of her childhood home at 36 years old. Now her whimsical brand includes decorative objects and glassware. Her brand revolves around the singular objective of providing sensory rituals for everyday enhancement.
She started by driving to her favorite fashion boutiques in Sydney with her candles in the boot of her car. After that, she had many successful collaborations and viral products like the beautiful pink J’ai Soif carafe.
What you see at Maison Balzac, is Elise Pioch’s uncapped creativity and her boldness to spread it.
To find out about more bold businesswomen, read our Q&A with the female founder, Loes Daniels.
What Can We Learn From These Women in E-commerce
All of these female e-commerce entrepreneurs have built incredible brands and have meaningful stories to share. What are the characteristics of ambitious women? While every journey is different, we can find commonalities between these women in ecommerce, and some that may inspire you if you are on a similar journey.
- Most of these brands are niche strong and have a strong brand identity and an engaged audience.
- All of the women thought out of the box to understand unmet needs, try new ventures, and build successful e-commerce businesses
- Find your passion or pain points, what can you fix or make better?
- All these female e-commerce entrepreneurs are bold and brave enough to start a project or act on an idea.
These women in e-commerce all focused on a niche market to stand out and followed their passion to build scaleable e-commerce businesses.
Who knows what you can create, build, and sell if you also think big and be bold?
What to Read Next? How to Start a Business as a Woman in 2024
FAQs About Starting An E-commerce Business
What platform is best for eCommerce?
Your e-commerce business will have unique needs, but here are 3 of the most well-known and widely used e-commerce platforms:
- Wix (Good for novices as it is easy to use with drag and drop features)
- Shopify ( great for beginners as it is a hosted, template-based, and user-friendly platform)
- Woocommerce (A great option if you want to expand a WordPress site into an e-commerce store)
What is the fastest-growing e-Commerce?
Here are 5 e-commerce industries expected to see significant growth:
- Media
- Food
- Fashion
- DIY and Hardware
- Electronics
Who are The Most Successful Women in Business
Some of the most inspiring women in business include:
- Sara Blakely
- Rihanna
- Oprah Winfrey
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