11 top blogs you should follow as an ecommerce entrepreneur

Update (April 2016): My new list of recommended ecommerce blogs to follow can be found here: The top 9 best ecommerce blogs to follow in 2016

Who has time to read more blogs, right? With all of the blogs, podcasts, and books being thrown your way, you might not even feel like trying to fit more consumption into your life.

I feel the same way, but one thing I've learned over the past year or so is the importance of flooding my mind with the thoughts of people who I want to be like. There's a quote you've probably heard before by Charlie "Tremendous" Jones: “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.”

By carefully choosing blogs to read by great thinkers and inspirational writers, you have the chance to "meet" and be influenced by people in a way that will powerfully shape your growth as an entrepreneur.

I've compiled this list of blogs that I highly recommend you check out, and I'd ask you to consider adding at least a few of them to your reading list. By the way, you don't need to bookmark them and visit each blog--Feedly is a great way to have blog posts delivered right to you.

These blogs are listed in no particular order.

1. A Better Lemonade Stand

Richard Lazazzera shares his real-life experiences with building an ecommerce business from scratch (#TheGreatBuild). He covers topics including choosing and validating a product to sell, deciding whether to dropship, manufacture, or wholesale, and negotiating with manufacturers. Richard's articles provide a fantastic over-the-shoulder look at someone crafting an ecommerce business.

My favorite recent article from A Better Lemonade Stand: Reverse Engineering The Perfect Ecommerce Product

2. eCommerceFuel

This is the blog of Andrew Youderian, probably the most well-known and respected ecommerce "solopreneur." Andrew quit his corporate job a few years ago and built two ecommerce stores from scratch that currently do over $1 million in revenue. eCommerceFuel shares Andrew's story, his advice, and his particular take on ecommerce strategy. He's got tons of useful resources, a free ebook, a podcast, a video training course (The Insider's Guide), and a forum for ecommerce veterans and professionals.

My favorite recent article from eCommerceFuel: Becoming a Niche Expert When Drop Shipping Products

3. The KissMetrics Blog

This is a high-powered blog packed with real, useful information about marketing and analytics. The founders behind KissMetrics--Neil Patel and Hiten Shah--have helped big names like TechCrunch increase their traffic by leaps and bounds, and their articles are well-worth the time you'll spend reading them.

My favorite recent article from the KissMetrics blog: Learn Growth Hacking: 35 Resources to Help You Become a Growth Hacker

4. Practical Ecommerce

If you can only find time to follow one blog consistently, Practical Ecommerce is a well-rounded resource for all aspects of ecommerce. Its articles cover marketing, conversion, shopping carts, social media, and design, plus more. It's pretty much the Wall Street Journal of ecommerce. Read it. :)

My favorite recent article from Practical Ecommerce: How to Create Compelling Ecommerce Content

5. The Shopify Blog

Shopify puts a lot of effort into providing high-quality, relevant articles that especially apply to small ecommerce startups and bootstrappers. They also have quite a varied voice--many of their articles are guest posts from authors with a wide range of backgrounds and experiences.

My favorite recent article from the Shopify blog: 5 Ecommerce Design Mistakes that Could Be Killing Your Sales

6. Bootstrapping Ecommerce

Shabbir Nooruddin provides extremely practical tips and strategies for building your ecommerce store. He's recently covered topics like how to get more email subscribers to your ecommerce store and how to build backlinks to your ecommerce site. Shabbir does a great job of not only sharing ideas, but also providing examples and actionable ways to implement those concepts.

My favorite recent article from Bootstrapping Ecommerce: The Story Of David And Goliath(Or All Of Us Vs. Amazon)

7. The Help Scout Blog

Help Scout is a simple customer service solution that you should consider using for your ecommerce business, but they go above and beyond to publish high-quality content on their blog as well. The blog covers important customer service tactics and strategies--even things like how to avoid telling your customers that you "can't" do something and instead craft a positive sentence.

My favorite recent article from the Help Scout Blog: How to Handle 8 Challenging Customer Service Scenarios

8. The Buffer Blog

Another service that also has a fantastic blog, Buffer churns out articles on productivity, life hacks, and business. It's not specifically about ecommerce, but the concepts are highly applicable to any entrepreneurs hoping to supplement their creativity and productivity in business and life.

My favorite recent article from Buffer: How our brains work when we are creative: The science of great ideas

9. Nerd Marketing

Drew Sanocki built a multi-million dollar ecommerce brand, Design Public, before selling it and founding an ecommerce advisory agency, Mineral.io. Drew's sense of humor will crack you up and his experience gives his writing insight that is hard to find elsewhere.

My favorite recent article from Drew Sanocki at Nerd Marketing: How to Build an Online Retailer to $1M in 18 Months (“EZ-Guide”)

10. ThinkTraffic

If I had to name the most inspiring, educational, and hilarious entrepreneurial voices online (in just the right mix), the award would go to Corbett Barr, Chase Reeves, and Caleb Wojcik of Think Traffic. It's about online business--not ecommerce-specific--but the concepts they write about are applicable to growing your ecommerce store's customer and fan base, as well as winning the mental game behind being a successful entrepreneur. They also put out one of my favorite podcasts, The Fizzle Show.

My favorite recent article from ThinkTraffic: When Will You Turn Pro?

11. Forever Jobless

Billy Murphy writes long-form posts that will take you awhile to read, but are well worth the investment of time. Billy has successfully built several online businesses, and currently owns a portfolio of ecommerce stores that he runs with a team of VAs. His methods are unorthodox. Your mind will be stretched by the ways he'll teach you to make decisions and build your business.

My favorite recent article from Forever Jobless: EV: Millionaire’s Math

Who did I miss?

I'm sure there are other fantastic ecommerce blogs that I didn't mention. What blog would you recommend? I'd love to check it out, so let me know in a comment below.

Update: My recently updated list of recommended ecommerce blogs to read can be found here: The top 9 best ecommerce blogs to follow in 2016