It’s tough to make a buck in e-commerce these days, even for retailers with famous names and deep pockets. Yet even with Amazon.com Inc. capturing more than 30% of U.S. online retail sales and powerhouses like Walmart Inc. investing heavily in e-commerce, there’s still room for newcomers to build successful businesses—if they can offer something different, better or cheaper than the competition, or if they can creatively take advantage of digital marketing opportunities to get their name known without blowing a lot of cash.

That’s the conclusion that emerges from an Internet Retailer study of 72 retailers that began selling online since 2015. Those 72 e-retailers increased their online sales by 112.2% in 2017 over 2016, by Internet Retailer’s estimate. Those that have been selling online since 2015 posted a two-year compound growth rate of 117.3%. That’s far above the U.S. e-commerce market growth of 16.0% in 2017 and 14.0% in 2016.

How did they do it? Mainly by…

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