According to Shopify founder Tobias Lutke, a major milestone has been crossed for the company that helps businesses sell their products online. 100,000 businesses now use Shopify to power their stores.
In a blog post the CEO said that Shopify is now home to businesses from over 150 countries. It hosts small mom-and-pop shops, big brands like Google and Tesla, and everything in between. To date, Shopify merchants have sold almost 4 billion dollars worth of products.
“The first Shopify store was actually my own. Almost a decade ago, I wanted to sell snowboards online. The options for shopping carts were either extremely expensive, or painfully complicated,” said Lutke. “Eventually this frustration was channeled into creating Shopify. We set out on a mission: to make ecommerce easier and more affordable, so that anyone could start their own online store.”
The company has certainly been on a role over the past 18 months. Last year it launched Shopify Payments and Shopify POS, so that merchants have a fully integrated payment processor and can use Shopify in their physical retail store. Around the same time, the Ottawa-based company raised one of the largest venture capital rounds in Canadian history in December when it received $100 million in series C money.
This year Lutke commented on how it launched the new Shopify Mobile, which lets merchants accept credit card payments from a mobile phone. “We now consider Shopify a retail operating system, a platform that allows a company to create and run their entire business using one system. Already, thousands of merchants run an online store, a physical retail store, pop-up shops, and more all using Shopify,” he said.
“Together, we are defining the future of retail,” added Lutke. “The next chapter in commerce will be defined by the great merging: online, offline, mobile. It’s all just commerce now.”
“The trust that our merchants place in us is really humbling. To all our partners, Shopify Experts, app and theme developers, our employees, and most of all, to every person and business using Shopify: thank you.”