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I don't think Shopify really needs discovery or awareness among customers/buyers. Shopify's customers are merchants, businesses and manufacturers, each adverti
by thirdsun 6y ago
I don't think Shopify really needs discovery or awareness among customers/buyers.
Shopify's customers are merchants, businesses and manufacturers, each advertising their very own store and sales channels. For them it's hard not to consider Shopify as their ecommerce platform of choice. Meanwhile I'd argue that end customers couldn't care less about which ecommerce platform their store of choice is using. Therefore I think the Shop app isn't all that important actually. Or do people really seek out Shopify stores in particular? That seems ridiculous to me.
- hef19898 6y agoAs a fun fact, a former Directo of ine from Amazon, ops side, joined Shopify a while ago. A couple of years ago, I started to wonder what an ideal Amazon-"killer" would look like. And came to the conclusion it would something with aPOS-system, a rudimentary inventory management for bric and mortar shops, a webshop solution, the possibility to interface with fulfillment software and other marketplaces. That would transform every single brick-and-mortar shop using that POS software into a fulfillment center. It would create abasically global dropshipping network. Withou any real fix costs, while Amazon is building fulfillment centers by the dozens. Amazon could have done so, but they didn't. Shopify can do so building upon there Webshop and POS environment. And they seem to do.
- reaperducer 6y agoThat would transform every single brick-and-mortar shop using that POS software into a fulfillment center. That's how thousands of businesses have operated for decades or more.
- hef19898 6y agoSure, locally. Combined with a global E-Commerce platform, that is pretty powerful.
- reaperducer 6y agoNot locally. Globally. My wife works with this sort of thing every day and has for her entire career.
- bognition 6y agoDoes Shopify have its own POS hardware? I wonder if they’ll buy one. Lots of companies are hurting and could be gobbled up in the cheap.
- hef19898 6y agoThey do: https://www.shopify.com/pos https://www.shopify.com/pos
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- throwawaylalala 6y agoShopify is building fulfillment centers.
- hef19898 6y agoThanks for that! Well, that changes things doesn't it? mens my plan H for a company is still valid then!
- lmm 6y agoI seek out places where I'm not going to have to reenter my payment information and/or roll the dice on a new customer-service UI. At the moment that means Amazon, Ebay or Etsy. If Shopify are offering some equivalent experience then I'm certainly interested.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y agoMost customers rightly don't care. I do though. I tried to place an order on an online service providers website to get some work done that I couldn't do on my own with my work laptop. They used shopify to process all payments and my order got denied. Not by the provider, not by my bank. But by shopify. I got a hold of one of the companies cs staff who looked into it and told me I was sol. Shopify had flagged my transaction as fraudulent and there's nothing he could do. Calling my bank didn't help, they didn't see the transaction as suspicious and would have authorized the transfer. Ultimately I gave up and will have a vile taste in the back of my mouth whenever I hear of shopify. The company I tried to patronize lost a customer, and shopify gets free bad press from me. So, while shopify doesn't need discovery or awareness among customers, shopify can't afford to get bad press without decent consumer ad spend else their actual customers may jump ship to avoid being tainted by their brand. If shopify fubars this deal with walmart that could start a snowball.