Socks on Amazon, alongside university
Starting capital4.000 €
Revenue 2024€83M
Johannes Kliesch started with his cousin, first selling socks on Amazon while doing a work-study degree.
retail-news.de · ARD documentaryMarket report · October 2026
Selling online. More people than ever before.
More and more people start their own store on the side, mostly alone and with little money. AI takes care of tech, copy and design. Here are the numbers, each with its source.
×3as many active Shopify stores as in 2019
690,000business starts in Germany in 2025
€2,000typical starting capital for a side business
How many people do it today
From 1 to 3.2 million stores. In seven years.
At the end of 2019 about 1.04 million Shopify stores were active. Today there are 3.19 million, about 104,000 of them in Germany.
Active Shopify stores worldwide
Quarterly data · Store Leads, as of Oct 23, 2026Business starts in Germany
as a side business
2024382,000
2025483,000
full-time
2024203,000
2025206,000
Almost all of the growth comes from side businesses: +26% in one year. 70% of all business starts now happen on the side, more than ever.
KfW Start-up Monitor 2026 · KfW, May 2026Who does it
Alone, on the side, on a small budget.
The typical business start in 2025 is not a company with a team and investors. It is one person building something of their own next to a job or studies.
AI and vibe coding
You don't need to code. AI does it now.
Vibe coding means you describe what you want in plain words and AI builds it. That makes starting your own store much easier.
Out of 100 people …
< 1
can code, professionally or as a hobby. There are about 48 million developers among 8.2 billion people worldwide.
SlashData 2025 · UN67
already use AI such as ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini in Germany. In summer 2024 it was 40.
Bitkom, May 2025Developers worldwide48M
Weekly ChatGPT users800M
For every person who can code, about 16 use ChatGPT every week. Today, describing what you want in plain words is enough to get your own store.
TechCrunch, Oct 6, 2025 · SlashData15×
as many orders reached Shopify stores through AI search at the end of 2025 as in January 2025.
Canadian Press, Feb 11, 2026+31%
higher purchase rate for visitors who came to online shops via AI assistants in the 2025 holiday season.
Adobe Analytics, Jan 2026They started small
From side project to big business.
Individual cases, not typical. These examples are outstanding exceptions. Most stores stay much smaller (see below). Revenue is not profit; figures as stated by the companies.
A jewelry idea from a semester abroad
Starting capital500 €
Annual revenue≈ €60M
Alisa Jahnke brought the idea back from Hawaii. Today Purelei is one of Germany's largest online jewelry brands.
OMR podcastOne person, no employees
Team1 person
Photo AI per month≈ $132,000
He builds his apps alone with the help of AI and publishes his revenue himself. He only outsources support and server monitoring.
PPC LandStarted solo, sold after 6 months
Investorsnone
Sale price$80M
Maor Shlomo built a vibe coding platform without investors and sold it to Wix after half a year.
TechCrunch, Jun 18, 2025What is realistic
A lot is possible. Most start small.
A few large stores pull the average up. The typical store makes much less revenue, especially at the start.
Monthly revenue of stores in one niche (running)
Typical store (median)$1,400
Average$16,000
Starting small is normalGrowth happens step by stepLittle starting capital needed
For comparison: all Shopify merchants together sold about $378B in 2025, a calculated average of roughly $125,000 per store per year. Shopify does not publish a breakdown per merchant. Shopify 10-K 2025
The market
Plenty of room for your store.
Start your own storeTry it for free, live in about 5 minutes.
All sources
- Store Leads, Shopify report, quarterly data 2019–2026 (as of Oct 23, 2026)
- KfW Start-up Monitor 2026
- KfW press release, May 2026
- EcommerceBytes: Etsy Global Seller Census 2021
- SlashData: Developer Population 2025
- UN World Population Prospects
- Bitkom: AI use is booming (May 2025)
- TechCrunch: ChatGPT hits 800M weekly users
- CNN: “Vibe coding” is Collins Word of the Year 2025
- Canadian Press: Shopify Q4 2025
- Adobe: 2025 holiday shopping season
- retail-news.de: SNOCKS revenue 2024
- OMR: Purelei founder Alisa Jahnke
- PPC Land: Pieter Levels' Photo AI
- TechCrunch: Base44 sold to Wix
- StoreCensus: Running Shopify stores (modeled estimate)
- Shopify Inc., Form 10-K 2025
- HDE Online-Monitor 2026
- IMARC Group: Global Dropshipping Market
- Global Market Insights: Dropshipping Market
- eMarketer forecast, cited on the Shopify blog
As of Oct 26, 2026. All figures come from the sources listed. The examples are individual cases and no promise of revenue or profit. Shopify is a trademark of Shopify Inc.