The global pandemic generated a huge shift to online stores, and one big winner is Shopify.
E-commerce has grown 32 percent since Q1 of 2020 and 45 percent since 2019, according to the US Department of Commerce. According to a study from Adobe, in just a couple of months, online shopping in the US achieved between 4 and 6 years’ worth of growth. April and May e-commerce levels were higher than what retailers achieved during the 2019 holiday season (the most important weeks in American retail).
Among the winners of this noteworthy shift are big names like Walmart or Amazon. But not only. An impressive number of small businesses migrated online trying to survive the pandemic. New stores created on Shopify rocketed by 71 percent in Q2 2020 compared to Q1 of 2020.
And with a market value of roughly $117 billion, Shopify is bigger than eBay Inc. and Target Corp. combined.
But that’s not the whole story. Shopify isn’t the only winner here: so are its merchants. Companies are moving their real-life stores to the platform at an incredible rate. Merchants benefit greatly from the move to online shopping, but there’s another link in the chain that is also seeing significant growth.
E-commerce agencies are among the list of winners due to COVID-19. One such company is Zissu, and during the pandemic, it has assisted hundreds of businesses in the transition to Shopify. Agencies like Zissu help merchants set up their stores, design them, install and configure Shopify’s various apps, and increase conversion rates. Essentially, Zissu is holding the merchant’s hand through the entire setup process.
And that is helping merchants to navigate Shopify, which can be difficult to master, but in the case of Zissu, it has helped its clients generate $18 million in sales.
The monetary benefit is one thing, but other bonuses are directly generated because of the pandemic: Product features.
“To keep its momentum going, Shopify has developed during COVID-19 its store importer,” Chen Zissu, CEO at Zissu, told me. “This is an internal app that helps import clients, products, collections, and reviews from almost any e-commerce platform.”
The importer makes data migration easier, but the way merchants are using Shopify has also changed since the pandemic, including new features to aid conversion and improve the customer experience.
“Store owners can upload products quickly thanks to Shopify mobile app update which allows users to take product photos and upload to their stores right away,” Zissu said. ” But for a better purchasing experience, Shopify started using 3D and AR models. Shopify also added 3D and AR model creators to Shopify’s expert marketplace so users can get a sense of the measurements of a product and what it will look like in reality.”
Even the way customers buy products has changed, and no doubt, the addition of Shopify’s loan offerings has created more revenue opportunities for the platform.
“We saw more people using Shopify’s loans,” Zissu said. “Shopify also created new financial models and payment gateway integrations such as buy now pay later, and split payments.”
Of course, the pandemic itself has been truly horrible for many and incredibly challenging. But e-commerce as a whole, Shopify, its merchants, and Shopify setup and optimization agencies benefit from the sharp increase in online shopping, and it doesn’t look like this will slow down in 2021.
