Shopify is building its own marketplace — Shop

Shopify once claimed that it would not build its own market, but its app Shop has almost become a complete market where consumers can discover merchants, purchase products and pay and check out within the app .

Last year, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke mentioned in the Q4 earnings conference that Shop had an obvious playbook. The playbook Tobi mentioned was most likely a target market , and he also mentioned that Shopify didn't want to follow the playbook .

Shopify is constantly adding new features to bring its app Shop closer to a complete marketplace. When the app was launched in April 2020, it did not have a shopping cart or in-app checkout , and clicking on an item would pop up a website window containing the item .

Now, however, all the features are integrated together , and users can shop without leaving the Shop app , which to some extent meets the definition of the market.

According to Yienjun, the application currently does not support buyers searching for products among all Shopify merchants , such as sweaters . The application only displays search results containing the word sweater in the product listing to users .

However, Shopify is said to be testing a new search feature - universal search - that would allow customers to search for items across all Shopify merchants , meaning products from competing brands would be shown to users alongside them .

However , not all merchants agree with this new search function, and the debate about whether this function will have a negative impact on merchants continues. Universal search means that the ranking algorithm will usher in new changes , and universal search also means that merchants can get higher rankings by paying .

Although Shopify has not yet made clear the direction of the Shop app 's development , its millions of downloads per month cannot be underestimated . More people download the app than Walmart, Nike, Target , and any other platform except Amazon .

If Shopify rolls out universal search to users , the Shop app will generate significant GMV with a large base of users , but it won’t be enough to impact broader e-commerce. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest , and Google Shopping are Shopify’s marketplaces , but they are also Amazon, Walmart, and Target ’s .

But it is undeniable that Shopify has invisibly built a market. As Tobi Lütke said, this is the obvious script , one that will not destroy e-commerce.

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