Canadian tech star wants to save commerce from the ‘800-pound gorilla’ that is Amazon and give it back to the little guy
Los Angeles — Shopify Inc. has a place in downtown Los Angeles that adheres to the nondescript tech-space aesthetic pioneered by Apple stores: clean white walls, blonde wood accents, brightly lit.
“There’s an inherent danger that we all need to be aware of here,” Shopify chief operating officer Harley Finkelstein said ominously last spring during the keynote presentation at the company’s annual partner conference. “Amazon is the 800-pound gorilla, and a lot of the things that customers have come to expect and crave were originated with Amazon,” said Penny Gillespie, an analyst focusing on digital commerce at Gartner.
Shopify is usually described as an e-commerce service provider, which is true, but it doesn’t capture the full picture. But to realize its vision, Shopify needs to foster the entrepreneurial spirit in many more people, and it needs to support those fledgling merchants as they try to get a business off the ground. This is what the company aims to do in Los Angeles.
Although there’s a Shopify logo on the wall, DeBacker and others said you don’t need to be a customer to come in for workshops or consultations. And the company’s effort to encourage people to embrace their entrepreneurial spirit goes beyond just Los Angeles. Shopify stated in its first-quarter financials that it “currently powers over 800,000 businesses in approximately 175 countries,” but it doesn’t disclose how many of those users are actively making sales or growing.
There’s even a thriving cottage industry on YouTube where videos promise tips and guidance on how to use Shopify, making it seem like a get rich quick scheme. And the partner ecosystem is healthy enough that venture capitalists in January saw fit to invest $22 million in Bold Commerce, a Winnipeg-based company that employs close to 300 people dedicated to writing apps for the Shopify ecosystem.
In the jewelry business, Angelucci said Blue Nile is the big monolithic player, and by the tone of his voice, it’s clear that Blue Nile is scary enough that he has no choice but to embrace online commerce.
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