Shopify

Shopify is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company that provides a cloud-based commerce platform for businesses of all sizes to create and operate online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. The platform hosts storefronts, processes payments, handles shipping, and provides tools for product management, marketing, and analytics, allowing merchants to run an online business without extensive technical development.

Shopify was founded in 2006 in Ottawa by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake after their snowboard shop needed a better e-commerce solution. It evolved from a storefront builder into a comprehensive e-commerce operating system, and it expanded to serve enterprise customers with Shopify Plus while cultivating a large ecosystem through the Shopify App Store and Shopify Payments.

The platform supports storefront themes and customization via the Liquid templating language, admin tools, and apps. Merchants can sell across multiple channels—online, social media, marketplaces, and physical retail locations using the same backend. Built-in payment processing through Shopify Payments is available, with support for external gateways. Additional features include shipping and tax calculations, inventory management, SEO and marketing tools, and analytics, as well as tools for abandoned cart recovery and customer management.

Shopify’s revenue primarily comes from subscription plans, plus fees related to payment processing when using Shopify Payments and from apps and services sold through the Shopify App Store. The company maintains a large developer ecosystem that extends the platform’s capabilities with hundreds of third-party apps and themes.

Shopify has become a leading platform for independent merchants and small-to-medium enterprises, contributing to the growth of hosted e-commerce services. It faces competition from other e-commerce platforms and has been subject to criticism related to platform dependency, app store economics, and data privacy concerns.