Women entrepreneurs are leading the e-commerce business, claims Shopify data. They are generating trillions of dollars and millions of job opportunities in the online shopping business. Shopify calls them “exceptional leaders, thinkers and innovators” in a recent article that shares mindblowing data related to women merchants on Shopify. The Canadian e-commerce giant also shared the inspirational journey of three women entrepreneurs and their Shopify-powered stores.
Our goal is to transform America’s relationship with sugar. And we want to do that by making something that’s just wholly better.
Kathryn Shah, Co-founder, Spring & Mulberry
What Data Says
According to Shopify, at least 53 percent of global entrepreneurs based on its platform are women. The data further added that there are 413 million women entrepreneurs operating across the globe. Despite this fact, Shopify adds that women entrepreneurs still face challenges like difficulty raising venture capital and wage inequality. However, the bright side is that women merchants are earning more for “every dollar invested than their male counterparts”.
Shopify always works to create equal and sustainable e-commerce. On the occasion of International Women’s Day (March 8), Shopify shared stories of three Shopify stores that are run by women entrepreneurs. Cheering from the sidelines, Shopify intends to celebrate the change-makers of modern e-commerce.
1. Nopalera
The first story belongs to Sandra Velasquez, who launched the Latin beauty brand Nopalera using Shopify in 2020. Celebrating her Mexican culture, Velasquez expanded her products from online to the shelves of major retailers like Credo Beauty, Nordstrom, and Free People. It took Velasquez three years to expand her business.
“I had this idea, this big bold vision that I was going to create a high-end Latina brand that’s going to disrupt the historically Euro-centric beauty space,” she said as quoted by news.shopify.com.
“The more French a word is, the more expensive we think the product should be. If it’s in Spanish, people ask, why is it so expensive? Our culture is rich, beautiful, and worthy of the same price tags,” Velasquez added.
A daughter of Mexican immigrants, Velasquez spend her childhood in California. Her products are inspired by nopales — cacti that are part of numerous Mexican cuisine dishes. She started her Shopify store at the age of 43. Before that, Velasquez worked as a musician and saleswoman in New York grocery stores.
It was during the Coronavirus pandemic when she started to look for something more exciting than her sales job. “It forced me to look outside of what I thought my reality could be, to look outside what I thought was possible,” Velasquez recalled.
She continued to work for seven months at three jobs before finally returning to her Brooklyn apartment. She then pursued a degree in organic skincare formulation and transformed her kitchen into a laboratory to produce beauty products of her own. She used oils extracted from nopales to make moisturizers, soap and exfoliants.
Thanks to Shopify and her spirit, her products traveled from her kitchen-cum-laboratory to over 400 boutiques across the United States. Recalling the decade of struggle, Velasquez said: “What drives me? In ten years, you’re going to see our logo on the pitch deck of another Latina entrepreneur. Someone has to be first.”
2. Spring & Mulberry
Another story teaches us that we should never quit, no matter what. It is the story of Kathryn Shah, who discovered a sweet through her cancer diagnosis. Shah took inspiration from the cultures of the Middle East and India, where she traveled to visit her husband’s family. She was astonished to see how fruit, nuts, and dates are used in these countries. It was much different from what she saw in the US.
At the age of 35, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. “Everyone was sending me chocolate boxes and cookies. It was lovely, but I’d look at the label and it was crazy what all of these foods included,” Shah said.
One day, she received a cake with over 50 ingredients. Most of these ingredients could cause the growth of tumorous cancer. “I thought, there has to be something better. Something that’s delicious and beautiful and chic and cool – and good for you,” she wondered.
Shah was accompanied by her friend Sarah Bell in her experiment at her North Carolina home kitchen. They were trying to discover the safest natural ingredients to bake a cake. Here is when herbs and spices like cardamom, lavender, pistachio, funnel seeds and mulberries became part of Shah’s cake.
After 40 iterations, the women created a chocolate bar that was tasty yet healthy and made of all-natural ingredients. Shah named her Shopify store Spring & Mulberry. She still prefers old techniques like tasting her own products after adding new ingredients. She now has six varieties of date-sweetened chocolate in her Shopify store.
Shah also tries not to waste food as she makes muesli with leftover ingredients. Guess what! her muesli is equally popular among parents who like to feed their toddlers healthy food. Co-founders, Shah and Bell don’t shy away from calling Spring & Mulberry a “catalyst for change”.
“Our long-term mission is to become a company that uses our position as we grow to advocate on behalf of Americans, to make changes so that people are not eating sugar in every single thing that they consume,” Shah said.
“Our goal is to transform America’s relationship with sugar. And we want to do that by making something that’s just wholly better,” she added.
3. MADRE
In the third story, Shopify mentioned Shay Carrillo and Jeanie Kirk, who infused empathy with textiles. Based in the US, the duo aspired to create home essentials using beautiful and vibrant linen. They traveled from their base in Portland to the booming linen industry in the Willamette Valley.
“We spent our first year talking a lot about our ethos, our philosophy. How can we create a brand that pushes forth not only our idea of beauty but a way of living in harmony with ourselves and the earth?” Carrillo, who belongs to Mexico, said.
Naming their Shopify store MADRE, Carrillo and Kirk launched products like tablecloths, napkins and bedding. all their products come in vibrant colours and cool Spanish names like Leche, Tamarindo and Maíz.
Adding empathy to their efforts, Carrillo and Kirk only partnered with women-led brands and offered unlimited paid time off to employees for out-of-the-box ideas. They also ensured an at-work daycare for their mill workers.
“What about the joy of getting to see children every day? There’s so much joy that children hold for us, and if we separate our lives from that I think we lose something,” Kirk said.
“So how can we weave together the things we hold dear around mothering and also begin to bring some of that into our company culture?” she added.
According to the co-founders, MADRE is not just about high-quality vibrant napkins but also their journey that would inspire generations of women entrepreneurs. “It’s not easy,” Kirk said.
“It means we have gone more slowly and intentionally. I love making beautiful things. But for me, what has me get up every day is that there’s something so much deeper here. It grounds us. It puts literal roots in the soil. When we talk about flax, we’re talking about a plant that the international community is hungry for, that can be grown and harvested and create people’s livelihoods. It makes our discussion of the planet really tangible,” Carrillo added.
Shopify’s Intent
Shopify has always supported women’s entrepreneurship. In September last year, Shopify’s Merchant Success Team Lead – Key Accounts, Shopify Plus — Sheena Brady — left her job to focus on her own business. Brady took to LinkedIn to announce that she is leaving Shopify to take her wellness tea brand Tease to the next level.
Eight years ago, Brady joined Shopify to earn “a little extra income” to support her small business. “My friend Mark Hayes said I might make a decent freelance writer, publishing interviews about Shopify’s successful merchants since I was a merchant myself. Little did I know, that opportunity would morph into a wildly challenging yet rewarding journey growing as a leader, merchant, and human while getting to work with some of the most ambitious and amazing people on the planet,” she revealed.
Brady looks forward to her entrepreneurial journey at Tease with learnings from Shopify. “I’ve spent the last few days trying to reflect on my lessons and learnings over the years in terms of what it means to me to build a company built on intentional leadership as I enter this scary, but incredibly exciting new chapter, and hope to bring some of those learnings into what we’re building next at Tease…”
Brady is not the only employee at Shopify that was running her own business parallelly. Shopify President Harley Finkelstein started a tea store — Firebelly Tea — using the Canadian e-commerce platform last year.
