Can Shopify Compete With Amazon Without Becoming Amazon? (Published 2020)

While it began with a simple tool for sellers to set up their own e-commerce stores, Shopify has expanded into a platform with a thriving ecosystem of plug-ins. In addition, it allows merchants to manage and process payments, and recently launched fulfillment services and e-mail marketing software. Shopify is quickly building all the same functiona... See more

One of the most important companies in making both of the non-Amazon value-chains work is Shopify, which is a platform, not an Aggregator. Google and Facebook may collect the customers, but it is Shopify (and WooCommerce, its open-source competitor) that provides the infrastructure for merchants to actually sell things online.

Whether or not Shop is an online marketplace is a moot point. It’s worth pointing out that, unlike with other online marketplaces, brands using Shop won’t get short shrift: apart from Shopify’s payment transaction fee (which is between 2.4 and 2.9%), Shop won’t charge brands commission to rent space on the platform. By comparison, Amazon charges 75... See more