How much can a small ecommerce store realistically earn?

A one-person store in the Gulf doing well is somewhere between 20,000 and 120,000 dirhams a month in revenue, of which the owner keeps perhaps a fifth. Most sit below that range.

In more detail

The ceiling is rarely demand and almost always working capital and attention. Growing past it means either hiring, or narrowing to fewer products with better margins — and the second is available to everyone immediately.

What to do about it

Repeat customers are the whole game. Winning a customer costs money; selling to them again costs almost nothing.

Most of the money in ecommerce is made in unglamorous categories bought regularly, not in the ones that photograph well.

Selling online is not passive income. It is a business with stock, customers and a support inbox, and anybody describing it as passive is selling a course.

The mobile app angle

This is where an app earns its place — it exists to make the second and third purchase easier, which is where the profit is.