The truth is that the answer varies depending on a number of factors which include but are not limited to:
How many hours per day do you work on your store?
What type of products do you sell? (IE what is the profit margin per sale)
Is your shop seasonal or year-round?
How many customers can you get to visit your store each month?
And so on...
But in general, if someone has a successful online store, they can earn revenues anywhere from $10k-$500k/year. Keep in mind though that this does not take into account any costs for overhead or business expenses.
Running a successful eCom store can be really profitable, but there is a lot of overhead involved at scale. Some of the costs include:
Website hosting related costs (Shopify is the go-to for affordability, features, and performance)
Storage fees for all of your inventory (and the money you spend to purchase that inventory)
Shipping costs paid directly by customers or passed on through shipping rates with eCommerce providers like Shopify.
Advertising & marketing campaigns designed to grow and convert new sales, including PPC campaigns, online ads, social media campaigns, and more.
Customer service costs related to responding to messages from customers, refunds/exchanges, etc., which can be handled entirely yourself or delegated through a customer support platform like Zendesk or Freshdesk.
In order for an online store owner to truly turn a profit at scale, they need not only have a great product that people will want to buy, but they also need a solid plan for managing all these additional overhead costs and winning back return customers through a successful initial sale.
This is a really good question as most successful eCom business owners learn through experience and due to this, you'll likely waste a lot of your money invested through trial and error.
In order to maximize your results in the shortest amount of time, we recommend learning basic and advanced tactics from other eCom store owners who have achieved proven methods for success through their own experience.
This is where we have found eCom Babes to be a great fit for budding female entrepreneurs who wish to set up their first online boutique and set themselves up for success. You can learn more in our full eCom Babes review.
With the proper training and effort put into growing your eCom store from scratch, you can expect to make anywhere from $5k-$30k+ your first year with exceptions, of course.
Much of these earnings will depend on how low your custom acquisitions costs are as well (they are very low when using the techniques taught within the eCom Babes course) as well as how high of a profit margin your products are.
These decisions are difficult to make when you are brand new to the world of eCommerce as many of these niches are saturated with big players in the game. However, doing good niche and product research can set you up for long-term success.