To grow its take rate significantly from here, Shopify would need to deliver a value it currently lacks: demand gen(-eration). I've written about the powerful combo of free software, marketplace services, and demand gen in my "business in a box" post a few weeks ago. Because 50% of e-commerce searches already start on Amazon, the incumbent has a... See more

Because Shopify runs the websites of these merchants, it may be able to more accurately track users bouncing between sites and build machine learning algorithms to calculate lookalike audiences for its stores. It may also be able to persist a customer's payment info across stores to make the secondary checkout faster. In short, Shopify has the... See more

Imagine a Shopify app installed on a store page after checkout. It could offer ads for related or similar products. If the shopper clicks through and transacts in another store, Shopify could earn an additional "demand gen" rake for that transaction, net of payment to the sending merchant for hosting the ad inventory. Shopify may even find... See more