One of the leading ecommerce solutions today, Shopify started out in an entirely different fashion that you may suspect. In fact, as we cull through this list of shopify statistics, you will find that some of these factoids are not only interesting, but that they make a case study for ambitious efforts that result in surefire success.
Every story has a beginning. Here’s how Shopify’s began.
Shopify Facts
Shopify actually began as an online store, not an ecommerce services provider. The company was founded to sell goods online. These goods happened to be snowboards, and they were not being sold by the Shopify that you know today, but rather under a different banner: Snowdevil. When the decision was made to convert the company from a retailer into an ecommerce services provider, the name Jaded Pixel was decided upon.
Even though the company is based in Ottawa, Canada, the founder, Tobias Lütke, is from Germany. He ultimately met and fell in love with a woman while visiting Whistler to snowboard. As a result, he ended up relocating to Canada to be with his new love. Notwithstanding the rumors, the company did not settle down due to tax incentives, but rather due to the fact that Lütke was in love.
Lütke was a natural coder growing up. After mastering the art, he used it to create his own ecommerce software, which led to the creation of Snowdevil. Jaded Pixel and Shopify would later result after numerous ecommerce retailers inquired about using Lütke’s software to power their stores. Years later, Shopify is one of the largest providers of ecommerce software in the world.
Today, Shopify is one of the most popular multichannel ecommerce platforms. It works across multiple sales channels with easy-to-use software and tools, including a site builder, marketing tools and more, powering over 200,000 businesses in over 150 countries around the world.
Shopify Statistics
Now that you know the Shopify story, what can we glean from the current Shopify statistics? According to Tech Crunch, Shopify is one of the “largest players in the create-your-own-online store space.”
As the popularity chart below reflects, Shopify is in the top 1 million sites in the following impressive niches: shopping, business, adult, social, health and technology.
The company routinely relies upon user feedback to update its design and to improve its functionality. During the v2.0 update, the shop maker based its new design on the feedback of over 50,000 merchants. This resulted in the company integrating over 60 new features in par with a complete overhaul of its interface and design at a cost of millions of dollars.
Between 2011 and 2012, the company expanded from 18,000 stores to 41,000 active stores. By 2013, it had more than 80,000 active stores. Today, it boasts a growing megalopolis of over 200,000 stores.
In just 10 years since it was founded, Shopify has continued to exceed all expectations. Today, it’s one of the largest online ecommerce platforms that exists. With thousands of integration partners and developers, the Shopify App Store offers an app for just about anything and everything.
As compared to leading solutions, Shopify has consistently ranked near the top. This is as compared to juggernaut contenders like Magento, PRESTASHOP, and others. In the chart below, which is dated 2014, you can see that Shopify was rated as being used by 8.3% of all online retailers, but was still being outdone by a few rivals.
