Case Study: How We Turned A Shopify Store Acquisition Into A $336,619 Exit In 11 Months
The Shopify Business Acquisition Overview:
Brand Name: GreenPaws Supply
Niche: Eco-friendly pet toys and accessories
Platform: Shopify
Asking Price: $216,000
Final Purchase Price: $142,876
Capital Saved: $73,124 or 34 percent
Monthly Profit at Purchase: $12,196
Annual Profit: $146,352
Profit Multiple Paid: 0.98x
Payback Period: 11 months
Projected Exit Price: $336,619
This was a clean e-commerce business acquisition with one clear advantage: We bought future upside instead of past performance.
We Help You Buy / Build, Manage and Scale E-commerce Brands for an EXIT
E-commerce Simplified for Busy Individuals – We handle the buying, building, and scaling, so you can focus on what matters.
Growth-Focused Strategies – From sourcing to marketing, we drive growth and prepare you for a profitable exit.
Expertly Managed Exits – We build a high-value brand designed for a Lucrative exit.
Why We Targeted This Brand
One factor that drove us to mark this Shopify store as a great acquisition is that the eco-conscious pet buyer is not price-driven.
They usually care about values, story, and trust.
According to a 2023 Nielsen report, 78 percent of consumers say sustainability influences their buying decisions.
GreenPaws Supply already had that audience. What it did not have was a system that turned interest into repeat revenue.
We saw FOUR clear positives, namely:
Proven demand in a growing niche
Positive cash flow with low operational risk
Strong customer engagement on social channels
No paid traffic dependency
That last point mattered most as significant growth was being left on the table.
Our Due Diligence Findings:
Our Smart Acquisition Team at Trend Hijacking does not look for perfection when conducting due diligence for an e-commerce business. Rather, we look for leverage.
And this is exactly what we did in this case.
We focused on these crucial areas:
Seller Pricing
The seller priced the business slightly above market averages for similar Shopify stores.
Industry data from Empire Flippers shows most content-led e-commerce brands sell between 2.5x and 3.5x monthly profit.
This brand was priced higher without the systems to support it.
Repeat Purchase Rate
Repeat purchases were weak for a consumable-driven niche. Email flows were basic. And there was no loyalty program.
According to Klaviyo’s 2023 benchmark report, strong e-commerce brands generate over 30% of revenue from repeat buyers.
This brand sat well below that mark.
Branding Issues
The products were eco-friendly, but the store did not explain why that mattered.
The store’s product pages listed features instead of values. Moreover, the visuals looked generic.
Marketing Gaps
SEO content for the online store was thin and poorly done. Pinterest had zero presence. This was a big problem.
Pinterest reports that over 80% of users discover new brands on the platform, especially in lifestyle categories like pets and sustainability.
NOTE that none of these were deal breakers to us. Rather, we saw them as pricing levers.
The Negotiation Strategy
Our secret to winning the negotiations phase? We simply anchored the negotiation on facts instead of opinions.
We showed the seller the following:
Low repeat revenue versus category benchmarks
No owned traffic growth system
Weak brand positioning despite premium pricing
The result was simple…
Final Purchase Price: $142,876
Discount to Asking: 22.8%
This acquisition of the Shopify store made sense on day one.
We paid under one times the annual profit. This created margin for error and room for growth.
Post-Acquisition Strategy:
Once we had the Shopify store handover done smoothly, our focus now shifted to how to grow it.
For this part, we focused on three things only. Brand, traffic, and retention. Here’s how exactly we worked on these areas:
Brand Repositioning
We rebuilt the store to explain one idea clearly. This brand supports eco-friendly pet ownership as a lifestyle choice.
We updated visuals, simplified product pages, and added clear sourcing stories.
Conversion rates improved without touching pricing.
SEO and Pinterest Growth
We launched simple educational content around sustainable pet care.
According to HubSpot data from 2023, companies that blog regularly get 55% more organic traffic. This highlights how blogging can be a powerful tool for driving organic traffic and leads.
Armed with this knowledge, we worked on Pinterest campaigns that focused on lifestyle use instead of product shots.
The result? We saw a quick improvement in the overall traffic quality.
Email and Retention Systems
Finally, we rebuilt all the e-commerce store email flows. Welcome, post-purchase, replenishment, and loyalty sequences went live.
As Omnisend’s 2024 report explains, automated emails drive over 30% of total email revenue.
That fact held true here.
We Help You Buy / Build, Manage and Scale E-commerce Brands for an EXIT
E-commerce Simplified for Busy Individuals – We handle the buying, building, and scaling, so you can focus on what matters.
Growth-Focused Strategies – From sourcing to marketing, we drive growth and prepare you for a profitable exit.
Expertly Managed Exits – We build a high-value brand designed for a Lucrative exit.
Results After 10 Months:
This is where our small fixes above turned into real money in the bank:
Monthly Profit: $12,196 to $18,700
Profit Growth: Over 53 percent increase
Projected Exit Multiple: 2.3x
Projected Exit Value: $336,619
It’s important to note that the profit lift came from three clear changes:
Traffic quality improved through SEO and Pinterest
Conversion rates rose after the rebrand made the eco story clear
Repeat purchases grew once email flows started doing real work.
None of this required new products or heavy ad spend. We used the same catalog, the same suppliers, and the same customer base.
We simply removed friction from the buying process and gave customers a reason to come back.
This matters because buyers do not pay high multiples for revenue alone.
They pay for stable cash flow and repeat customers. By month ten, GreenPaws Supply had both!
This was not growth through hype. It came from fixing basics that most sellers ignore.
Why This Shopify Business Acquisition Worked
This acquisition worked because we bought a good business at the right price and fixed the few things that held it back.
Here are the reasons why this was a successful acquisition:
Underserved Niches Win: Eco-friendly pet products still lack strong operators. Demand exists. Execution does not.
Retention Beats New Traffic: Most profit came from repeat buyers, not ads. That reduced risk and improved margins.
Brand Creates Defense: Community-driven positioning made the brand harder to copy. That supports higher exit multiples.
Buying Right Matters: Paying below market value removed pressure. The business paid for itself fast.
What Investors Should Learn From This Acquisition:
This Shopify business acquisition followed a repeatable model:
Buy brands with real demand but weak systems
Fix brand clarity before scaling traffic
Build retention before chasing ads
Exit based on future earnings, not past screenshots
For investors with $100k to $1M, this approach reduces downside while keeping upside intact.
You are simply not buying a Shopify store, but an underused asset.
When done right, the numbers follow.
How Trend Hijacking Can Help You Do This…
This successful business acquisition did not rely on any luck.
It simply worked because we knew how to spot where sellers leave money on the table and how to use that in a deal.
At Trend Hijacking, this is exactly what we do;
We help investors find profitable e-commerce brands that sit below their real value.
But don’t get it wrong; these are not broken stores. They are brands with sales, customers, and cash flow, but with weak marketing, weak retention, or weak positioning. That is where price gaps exist.
In the GreenPaws Supply deal, we used four levers:
We found a niche with the rising demand in eco-friendly pet products.
We measured where the brand underperformed on repeat revenue and traffic.
We used those gaps to negotiate a lower purchase price.
We then applied proven systems in branding, SEO, Pinterest, and email to lift profit.
That took a $142,876 purchase and turned it into a business worth over $336,000.
At Trend Hijacking, we give you access to this same process…
We source off-market and under-marketed Shopify stores.
We run full due diligence on revenue, traffic, and customer data.
We help you negotiate below market value.
We then provide the growth plan that turns that discount into real returns.
If you want to buy a profitable e-commerce business without guessing, this is how you do it.
Trend Hijacking exists to make sure you never overpay for a Shopify brand that has easy money left inside it.
NOT sure where to begin?
Start by checking our FREE e-commerce investment guides below:
The 6-Step Blueprint to Ecommerce Acquisition Success
How Investors Are Turning $100K Into £1M+ in 2 Years
The Millionaire’s Playbook To Building Business Assets Without Micromanagement
Bringing It All Together
This Shopify business acquisition worked because we bought a real business at the right price and fixed what held it back.
GreenPaws Supply already had demand, profit, and loyal buyers. It just lacked clear branding, steady traffic, and strong repeat sales.
By buying below market value and improving those three areas, we turned a $142,876 purchase into a business on track for a $336,619 exit.
That result did not come from luck but from using data, simple systems, and disciplined deal-making.
This case study shows what happens when you stop chasing perfect stores and start buying underused ones.
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