By Rebekah CarterHave you ever wondered how to find Shopify stores online? Searching for Shopify stores can be a great way to access inspiration if you’re building your own ecommerce site, learn more about your competitors, or even gather valuable market research.
However, most Shopify users don’t actively advertise that they’re using Shopify as their ecommerce platform.
The good news? There are more ways to search for Shopify stores than simply looking at whether a company is using a myshopify.com domain.
Here, I’m going to guide you through some of the simplest ways to track down Shopify stores on the web.
Key Takeaways
- Learning how to find Shopify stores online can be an excellent way to learn about your audience and your competitors, conduct market research, and gain inspiration for when you build your own ecommerce store with Shopify.
- There are various ways to search for Shopify stores, from leveraging a standard Google search, to using directory websites, apps, and plugins.
- When searching for Shopify stores, it’s worth being specific, ensuring you look at websites explicitly tuned to your goals, and market niche.
Why Look for Shopify Stores? The Benefits
Spending time searching for other Shopify stores might seem like an unusual thing to do, particularly if you’re not planning on buying another company’s products (or a pre-built website).
However, there are some great reasons to look for other Shopify sites, such as:
Conducting Market Research
The first and most obvious reason to consider searching for other Shopify stores is to conduct market research.
Checking out different stores, particularly those connected to your niche, and targeting the same audience, will give you a valuable insight into the latest industry trends, emerging customer preferences, and even new product options.
Your list of Shopify stores can help you identify product categories you want to sell, create more comprehensive customer profiles, based on what you learn about the audiences other companies target, and even design more effective go-to-market campaigns.
You might even get some ideas on how you’re going to promote your store, based on the techniques other Shopify shop owners use, such as content marketing and SEO, showcasing customer reviews, or creating high-quality product photos and sharing them on social media.
Analyzing the Competition
Another good reason to search for Shopify stores is that it allows you to analyze other store owners in your industry.
Analyzing the competition can help you to identify gaps in the market that your competitors are overlooking, giving you an opportunity to increase sales. For instance, you might discover that most of your competitors in the clothing niche don’t offer sustainable products.
That gives you an excellent way to differentiate your company, and infuse new ideas into your marketing strategies.
Conducting a competitor analysis of successful Shopify stores will also help you to identify the key things you need to implement to make your own online store a success.
You might access the data you need to develop a stronger pricing strategy for your company, or get an insight into which tools and integrations you need to use with Shopify, such as email marketing apps, form builders, and subscription apps.
You can even decide whether the keywords your competitors target on their product pages and blogs are the same you should be using for your SEO strategy.
Gaining Inspiration for New Business Ideas
Researching Shopify stores is a great way to get the inspiration you need to build your own successful ecommerce venture.
Every Shopify store might be built on the same platform, but each will also have unique features that help separate it from the competition.
Reviewing other successful stores will help you to inspire:
- Your design strategy: What themes, branding elements, colors, images, and fonts you use.
- Your sales strategy: How you price products, promote them throughout your store, and increase sales with bundles and offers.
- Your growth plan: Based on the results of other Shopify store owners, you might decide to expand your ecommerce business with things like subscriptions, in-store selling, or even omnichannel selling by connecting your site with online marketplaces like Amazon.
How to Find Shopify Stores: 4 Easy Ways
Many business owners assume the only way to identify Shopify stores is to read through the source code on each website they visit to look for evidence of the Shopify platform. However, there are actually a range of great ways to find Shopify stores. Here are my top options.
Use Shopify Store Directory Websites
Many website owners around the world today know that entrepreneurs can benefit from evaluating other stores and sites.
Because of this, some innovators have created directory websites, which provide lists of Shopify stores for users to browse through.
One of the most commonly used options is “BuiltWith”, a site that lists stores based on the platform and technologies they’re using for other business owners to access.
This is a great website, with plenty of insights into everything from the store’s location to its sales revenue.
To use it, you need to log in or create an account on the website, click “Tools” then click “Ecommerce lists”, and select “Shopify” to access a list of stores.
Notably, there are nearly 4.5 million stores listed on the directory, so searching through everything to find stores that are actually relevant to your business and niche can take a lot of time.
If you’re looking for a simpler solution, the Ecomm.Design website is an excellent choice. This site only lists high-quality Shopify stores on its directory, and it gives you a number of tools you can use to filter through your options.
For instance, you can see a list of stores organized into niche categories, like clothing, apparel, lifestyle, luxury, and skincare.
Plus you can combine categories too. For instance, you might decide you want to see a selection of the top Shopify stores that fit into the “modern” and “jewelry” spaces.
You can also filter through stores based on the tools they’re using, such as Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Google Analytics, and Shopify Payments.
This could be ideal if you’re researching Shopify sites to see what kind of benefits certain integrations and apps can bring to your own store.
Find Shopify Stores Using Google Search
One of the easiest and most convenient ways to find Shopify stores online is with your Google search engine.
All you need to do is learn how to speak to Google. If you want to find stores built with Shopify, don’t just search for “Shopify store”.
Instead, enter site:myshopify.com into your search bar. This will tell Google you’re only looking for stores built with the Shopify platform.
For better results, you can refine your search by including a keyword relevant to your industry. Use the search phrase “Site: MyShopify.com + [keyword]”.
For instance, here’s what you’ll see if you search for Shopify stores related to the keyword “Fashion”:
If you want to get even more specific, you can include the “-“ detractor in your search query. This tells Google what to keep out of your search results.
For instance, if you want to find Shopify stores that sell fashion, but not footwear, you can use a search like this:
Keep in mind, if you’re tired of using Google’s search engine, there are also Chrome extensions out there that can instantly tell you what ecommerce platform a store is using.
Find Shopify Stores with Myip.MS
Another convenient way to find Shopify stores (without spending anything), is to conduct an IP address search, using a tool like Myip.MS. Shopify.com’s IP address is 23.227.38.65, and since Shopify stores are hosted on Shopify’s network, they share a similar IP address.
Notably, the exact address of each online business may vary slightly. For instance, different domain names might have IP addresses like:
- 23.227.38.32
- 23.227.38.36
- 23.227.38.74
To find websites that have a Shopify ID, all you need to do is visit MyIP.MS and enter Shopify’s IP address (23.227.38.65) into the search bar. Click on “Whois Lookup”, then click on “Other sites on this IP” to see all of the websites using a similar IP address.
You can also scroll down on Shopify’s IP page to see a list of well-known websites using the same IP address, such as Gymshark.com, and Gempages.net.
Another great thing about this method is you can narrow down your list of Shopify stores to the most successful options. Once you enter Shopify’s IP address, click on “View all Records” and click “World Site Popular Rating” to see which stores rank at the top.
Other Apps and Tools for Finding Shopify Stores
Alongside the three methods above, there are also various other ways you can search for Shopify stores online. Most involve using specific apps and tools, for instance:
- Koala Inspector or Commerce Inspector: Tools like Koala Inspector, Commerce Inspector, are great for getting insights into ecommerce stores. These tools can help you track product trends over time, monitor brand ad campaigns, and conduct deeper research into your competitors. Apps like these are useful if you want to learn more about a specific store.
- SimilarWeb: Competitor analysis tools like SimilarWeb can be extremely useful for finding out details about a Shopify store, without the need for any technical know-how. With SimilarWeb, all you need to do is enter keywords related into your niche into the SimilarWeb search bar, and it will surface a list of stores related to those terms.
- FindNiche: Find Niche is a website that allows you to track down websites specific to your niche. Simply visit the website, click on “Shopify” at the top of the page then “Shopify Store”, and type in the keywords you want to search for. It’s just like using a search engine.
- Social media platforms: Social media platforms can also be a great place to look for Shopify stores. You can join groups on channels like LinkedIn or Facebook dedicated to entrepreneurs using Shopify websites. Alternatively, you can look for hashtags that include the word “Shopify”, to track down success stories, theme information and more.
- Forums: Another option is to use forums like Reddit, or even Shopify’s own community forum to search for other companies using Shopify. This can also be a great way to connect with other store owners if you’re looking for advice for store optimization, hacks on how to grow your store, or tips on which integrations to use from the Shopify app store.
How to Find Successful Shopify Stores
Notably, while finding Shopify stores is relatively simple, standard search operators and directories won’t always be able to give you a lot of information about each ecommerce website you discover.
If you want to make sure you’re focusing your attention on successful Shopify stores, I recommend using the Ecomm.Design gallery.
Ecomm.Design only lists Shopify websites that have achieved excellent results, and it allows you to filter through options based on store functionality, niches, or business models (like dropshipping), and more.
Plus, when you click on each Shopify store in the list, you’ll get insights into the apps its using, its Shopify theme, and more, without having to use an extra tool like WappAnalyzer.
You can get started for free here.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
There are various ways to identify if a store is using Shopify. The easiest option is to open the website, and right click on the homepage. Click on “view page source”, and click “Inspect” or use the Ctrl+F shortcut to search for “Shopify”.
Many of the tools you can use to find Shopify stores are free. You can use Google for free, as well as social media and forums. The Ecomm.Design website is also free to use, and it’s even packed with handy step-by-step guides and blogs to help you launch your store.
The tools available to help you search for Shopify stores can vary in their accuracy. Many directories, plugins, and apps attempt to keep their lists up to date as often as possible. However, some stores listed as using “Shopify” may have switched to another platform before the list is updated.
You can find niche-specific Shopify stores by searching on Google with keywords, using tools like FindNiche, or leveraging the categories section on Ecomm.Design to filter your options by industry. It’s definitely worth focusing on your niche when conducting market and competitor research.
Finding and analyzing Shopify stores gives you an excellent opportunity to gather the insights you need to build a more effective website. You can get inspiration for your store’s design, find new ways to outperform the competition, and even discover ways to optimize your marketing campaigns, the customer checkout experience, and more.
