As they come in, I'll be updating this post to reflect statistics and figures for Shopify. Answering the question, how many Shopify stores are there, and a ton of others. Should be of use to future me, and maybe you too :-)
Frequently asked questions
How many Shopify stores are there?
In October 2019, Shopify announced in its quarterly results that Shopify surpassed one million merchants worldwide on the platform.
How many Shopify Plus stores are there?
Shopify Plus is the enterprise version of Shopify. The Plus homepage currently reports 5300+ businesses on Shopify Plus. First spotted in April 2019.
How many people/users on Shopify?
In June 2020, Shopify announced that in 2019, more than 2 million full-time jobs are supported by businesses on Shopify all over the world. In October 2019, Shopify reported that there are 1.4m full-time jobs supported by businesses on Shopify around the world. Previously, in April 2017, Shopify reported 1,000,000 active users on Shopify. This includes the staff members of all stores and was based on the 400,000 merchants on Shopify at the time.
What are Shopify's latest revenue figures?
Total revenue for the full year 2018 was $1.073 billion, a 59% increase over 2017. Total revenue for 2017 was $673.3 million, a 73% increase over 2016. Financial outlook for 2019 specifies revenues in the range of $1.545 billion to $1.555 billion.
How many orders processed on Shopify?
Reported in October 2019, $135+ billion in sales on the platform overall. Reported in June 2019; 218 million buyers on the platform in the last year; $100+ billion in total sales on the platform to date; $41.1 billion in total sales on the platform in 2018. In the 2nd quarter of 2018, Shopify recorded the billionth order on the platform overall. In May 2018, Shopify reported total sales to date for all merchants of $55 billion.
What are the latest figures for mobile usage in Shopify storefronts?
In the 3rd quarter of 2019, 81% of traffic and 71% of orders on Shopify stores are coming through mobile devices. This compares to 77% and 67% from the same quarter in 2018.
What does Shopify estimate as the value of the Partner ecosystem?
In May 2020, Shopify announced that 26,400 partners referred a merchant to Shopify over the past 12 months. In June 2020, Shopify announced that in 2019, there were over 14,700 partners and businesses engaged in international activity. And over 7,500 partners and businesses operating in developing countries around the world.
In 2018, Shopify paid over $100 million to partners up from $79 million in 2017.
Shopify estimates the value of the partner ecosystem in the following way. In 2019, Shopify’s revenue was around $1.5 billion dollars whereas the partner ecosystem generated more than $6.9 billion dollars. In 2018, Shopify made $1.073 billion and in that same period partners made an estimated $1.2 billion. In 2017, Shopify made $673 million. In that same period, Shopify estimates that partners made $800 million. This is up from 2016: Shopify $389 million and partner ecosystem $430 million.
In June 2019, Shopify estimates that more than 700,000 people directly and indirectly employed in the partner community. Also, 200,000+ merchants referred through partners; 73 million products sold from partner referred merchants; $64 billion GMV from partner referred merchants.
350,000 paid themes purchased by merchants.
What are the key statistics for the App Store?
In May 2020, Shopify announced that there are now 4,200 apps in the App Store.
In June 2019, Shopify announced: 25.8 million total number of apps installed, and more than 80% of merchants use third-party apps.
In September 2018, Shopify announced: to date, merchants have spent more than $100 million in the App Store; 12+ million app installs since 2011; 87% of merchants say that they rely on apps to run their business. Announced in May 2018: $100 million paid out to date to App developers with more than half of that paid out in 2017; average annual earnings of $162k for the top 25% of app developers; more than 2,400 apps. 23 million App Store visits; on average merchants have 6 apps installed.
How many retailers using the Shopify POS application?
More than 100,000 retailers using Shopify POS announced in June 2019.
What are the latest statistics for Black Friday Cyber Monday?
In 2020, there more than $5.1 billion in sales up 76% on 2019. More than 44 million customers bought from Shopify merchants, which is up 50% on the previous year. At the peak hour for sales of the weekend, $102+. The average cart price was $89.20. Shopify will offset 62,000 tonnes of carbon based on the shipping required for all the sales over the weekend.
Shopify in the UK in 2020
From an interview with President of Shopify, Harley Finkelstein:
“Last year in Britain Shopify increased the number of retailers launching on the platform by 106 per cent and it now hosts a total of 120,000 British businesses, including GymShark, the athleisurewear company that has been valued at $1 billion. A report published in collaboration with Deloitte, the counsultancy, found that Shopify merchants and their suppliers generated 112,780 new jobs in the UK last year, almost as many as the 118,000 retail jobs that were lost in 2020.”
Read the full article in The Times.
BCFM Weekend 2020
According to announcements by Shopify:
- In 2020, there more than $5.1 billion in sales up 76% on 2019.
- More than 44 million customers bought from Shopify merchants, which is up 50% on the previous year.
- At the peak hour for sales of the weekend, $102+.
- The average cart price was $89.20.
- Shopify will offset 62,000 tonnes of carbon based on the shipping required for all the sales over the weekend.
Read more on this Facebook post by Shopify Partners
June: Statistics announced in the Partner Town Hall
In the June 24th, 2020 livestream, Harley Finkelstein announced the following statistics:
- $319 billion of global economic activity on businesses on Shopify (2016 - 2019).
- In 2019, Shopify’s revenue was around $1.5 billion dollars whereas the partner ecosystem generated more than $6.9 billion dollars.
- In 2019, we saw more than 2 million full-time jobs supported by businesses on Shopify all over the world.
- In the last year, 218 million people have purchased something from a store built on Shopify.
- In 2019, there were over 14,700 partners and businesses engaged in international activity. And over 7,500 partners and businesses operating in developing countries around the world.
View the Partner Town Hall livestream in full here.
May: Statistics announced at Reunite
In 2020, the annual developer conference Unite was cancelled due to the Covid-19 crisis. Instead, a livestream called Reunite was held in May that was for merchants. The following statistics came up during the livestream:
- During the lockdown period, there was a 45% increase in people buying from stores they’ve never bought from before.
- Also, local orders were up 176%.
- Shop Pay has already 40 million customers worldwide.
- 30 million emails have been sent through Shopify Email.
- The Shop app (replacing the Arrive app) is being used by 16 million consumers.
- 1.1 billion views of the order detail page in the last year.
- Shopify Fulfilment network has 5 new warehouses.
- Shopify's services are distributed through 80 points of presence (servers) worldwide, across all continents.
You can rewatch the Reunite Livestream in full here.
May: Shop Pay Is the Fastest and Best-Converting Checkout Experience on the Internet
Based on a study of the 10,000 largest Shopify merchants with Shop Pay enabled, over a 1-month period spanning mid-January to mid-February 2020:
- Checkouts going through Shop Pay have an average checkout-to-order rate of 1.72x times higher than those going through regular checkouts.
- If we break that down into mobile and desktop, on desktop Shop Pay converted at 1.56x times higher, while on mobile, Shop Pay converted at 1.91x times higher.
Shop Pay is Shopify’s accelerated checkout method, launched in 2017 and has slowly made waves with over 40M buyers using Shop Pay regularly to purchase from Shopify stores.
From the 1st quarter report (linked below), to date, Shop Pay has processed over $8 billion in sales.
Read the article in full here.
May: Interesting figures and quotes relating to the Covid-19 Crisis
These first two are really incredible:
- Quote from the CTO Jean-Michel Lemieux on Twitter on 16/4/2020 (view on Twitter):
"As we help thousands of businesses to move online, our platform is now handling Black Friday level traffic every day! It won't be long before traffic has doubled or more." - While turnover through the point-of-sale (POS) channel declined by 71% between March 13, 2020 and April 24, 2020 relative to the comparable six-week period immediately prior to March 13, as most of Shopify’s Retail merchants suspended their in-store operations, Retail merchants managed to replace 94% of lost POS turnover with online sales over the same period.
And continuing:
- New stores created on the Shopify platform grew 62% between March 13, 2020 and April 24, 2020 compared to the prior six weeks.
- The shift of consumer spending toward online is apparent: the number of consumers estimated to have made a purchase for the first time from any Shopify merchant grew 8% between March 13, 2020 and April 24, 2020, compared to the six-week period immediately prior.
- Over the same period, the number of consumers estimated to have purchased from Shopify merchants they’d never shopped at before grew by 45% compared to the six-week period immediately prior.
- Retail merchants are adapting quickly to social-distance selling, as
26% of our brick-and-mortar merchants in our English-speaking geographies are now using some form of local in-store/curbside pickup and delivery solution, compared to 2% at the end of February. - Certain categories of GMV grew faster between March 13, 2020 and April 24, 2020, including Food, Beverages, and Tobacco, which doubled during this period relative to the 6-weeks immediately prior to March 13. Apparel
and accessories, a historically larger contributor to Shopify's GMV, experienced a softening in GMV in midMarch, followed by a recovery at the end of March, which continued into April. - Shops are seeing more local customers: in the six-week period since March 13, 2020, in English-speaking geographies, the percentage of customers per shop coming from within 25 kilometres of the shop’s registered address had increased, as had the number of shops with at least one local customer, while local orders in these geographies more than doubled.
For the full detail, refer to the 1st quarter financial results.
May: First-quarter 2020 Financial results
- Total revenue in the first quarter was $470.0 million, a 47% increase from the comparable quarter in 2019.
- Subscription Solutions revenue grew 34% to $187.6 million.
- Merchant Solutions revenue growth accelerated for the second consecutive quarter, up 57%, to $282.4 million, driven primarily by the growth of Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV).
- Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) as of March 31, 2020 was $55.4 million, up 25% compared with $44.2 million as of March 31, 2019.
- Shopify Plus contributed $15.3 million, or 28%, of MRR compared with 26% of MRR as of March 31, 2019.
- GMV for the first quarter was $17.4 billion, an increase of $5.5 billion, or 46%, over the first quarter of 2019.
- Gross Payments Volume (GPV) grew to $7.3 billion, which accounted for 42% of GMV processed in the quarter, versus $4.9 billion, or 41%, for the first quarter of 2019.
- 26,400 partners referred a merchant to Shopify over the past 12 months.
- 4,100 apps now in the App Store.
Read the full results here and check out the nice presentation here.
December: 3 million Gymshark products in 48 hours
If you are interested in seeing the operations of one large Shopify store over Black Friday period, take a look at this video from Gymshark. It gives an idea of what the Shopify platform is capable of:
- 3 million units over 48 hours.
- Or 62,500 units per hour.
- Or 1042 units per minute.
- Or 18 units per second.
An incredible success story for a store that started in a bedroom 7 years ago. At the same time, it's really quite scary in terms of climate heating and plastic-waste pollution. They are currently looking for a Sustainability Manager at least.
December: Black Friday Cyber Monday 2019 Results
With a million merchants now on the platform BCFM 2019 broke the previous year's records:
- Merchants from more than 175 countries sold $2.9+ billion, up from the previous year’s $1.8+ billion, from the kick-off of Black Friday to the close of Cyber Monday ET.
- Over 25.5 million consumers made a purchase from a Shopify merchant.
- Peak sales were more than $1.5 million per minute at 3:01 PM ET on Black Friday.
- Consumers spent an average of $83.05 per order, with Canadian consumers spending the most on average ($96.30), while shoppers in France ($66.86) and the UK ($67.01) were more conservative with their purchases.
- London and Toronto ranked in the top-selling cities, while the UK, Germany, France and Spain were amongst the top-selling countries worldwide.
- Cross-border shopping also grew, with 19% of all checkouts shipping from one country to another.
- Mobile remains the preferred shopping channel this year for online commerce, with 69% of sales made on phones or tablets, while just 31% occurred on desktop.
- Apparel and accessories saw the most orders during the weekend, with consumers purchasing Makeup, Mobile Phone Accessories and Coats & Jackets the most.
October: Third-quarter 2019 financial results
In the financial results, Shopify announced that it has surpassed one million merchants worldwide on the platform.
- More than 1 million merchants using Shopify.
- Total revenue in the third quarter was $390.6 million, a 45% increase from the comparable quarter in 2018.
- Subscription Solutions revenue grew 37% to $165.6 million. This increase was largely due to an increase in the number of merchants joining the Shopify platform.
- Merchant Solutions revenue grew 50%, to $225.0 million, driven primarily by the growth of Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV).
- MRR as of September 30, 2019 was $50.7 million, up 34% compared with $37.9 million as of September 30, 2018.Shopify Plus contributed $13.5 million, or 27%, of MRR compared with 24% of MRR as of September 30, 2018.
- GMV for the third quarter was $14.8 billion, an increase of $4.8 billion, or 48%, over the third quarter of 2018. Gross Payments Volume (GPV) grew to $6.2 billion, which accounted for 42% of GMV processed in the quarter, versus $4.1 billion, or 41%, for the third quarter of 2018.
- For the full year 2019, Shopify currently expects revenues in the range of $1.545 billion to $1.555 billion.
- Purchases from merchants’ stores coming from mobile devices versus desktop continued to climb in the quarter, accounting for nearly 81% of traffic and 71% of orders for the three months ended September 30, 2019, versus 77% and 67%, respectively, for the third quarter of 2018.
- Shopify launched the Shopify Sustainability Fund, which commits at least $5 million annually to invest in areas like carbon sequestration, neutralizing its carbon footprint, sustainable packaging, and enabling its merchants and their buyers to participate.
June: Some statistics announced at Shopify Unite
Not so many statistics announced this year but here are some of those that I caught:
- 820,000 merchants using Shopify.
- More than 100,000 merchants using Shopify POS.
- $41.1 billion in total sales on the platform in 2018.
- $100+ billion in total sales on the platform to date.
- 218 million buyers on the platform in the last year.
- If we look upon Shopify as a retailer, it sits in 3rd place in US retail ecommerce sales (4.4%), with Amazon in 1st position (9.1%), Ebay in 2nd position (6.5%), Apple in 4th position (3.9%), Walmart in 5th, etc.
- 25.8 million total number of apps installed.
- More than 80% of merchants use third party apps.
- 200,000+ merchants referred through partners.
- 73 million products sold from partner referred merchants.
- $64 billion GMV from partner referred merchants.
- 350,000 paid themes purchased by merchants.
- Value of the partner economy: In 2017, Shopify made $673 million, Shopify estimate partners made $800 million. In 2018, Shopify made $1.073 billion, Shopify estimates partners ecosystem made $1.2 billion.
- Shopify also estimates that more than 700,000 people directly and indirectly employed in the partner community.
- Shopify aims to be "The world's first global retail operating system".
- Every minute, a merchant has their first sale.
- Cross border buyers are up 35%.
Here is a summary of announcements at Unite 2019.
April: First-quarter 2019 financial results
- Total revenue in the first quarter was $320.5 million, a 50% increase from the comparable quarter in 2018.
- Subscription Solutions revenue grew 40% to $140.5 million largely due to an increase in the number of merchants joining the Shopify platform.
- Merchant Solutions revenue grew 58%, to $180.0 million, driven primarily by the growth of Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), as well as by robust growth in Shopify Capital and Shopify Shipping.
- Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) as of March 31, 2019 was $44.2 million, up 36% compared with $32.5 million as of March 31, 2018. Shopify Plus contributed $11.3 million, or 26%, of MRR compared with 22% of MRR as of March 31, 2018.
- GMV for the first quarter was $11.9 billion, an increase of $3.9 billion, or 50%, over the first quarter of 2018.
- Gross Payments Volume (GPV) grew to $4.9 billion, which accounted for 41% of GMV processed in the quarter, versus $3.0 billion, or 38%, for the first quarter of 2018.
- Mobile accounted for 79% of traffic and 69% of orders for the three months.
- For the full year 2019, Shopify currently expects revenues in the range of $1.48 billion to $1.50 billion.
April: Latest Shopify Plus figures
In April, spotted that the Shopify Plus figures on the homepage had been updated. Not sure when exactly these were published:
- 5300+ businesses on Shopify Plus.
- 126% year-over-year average growth for Shopify Plus merchants.
- $1M–500M+ sales revenue per merchant, high-volume brands to Fortune 500s.
- 10,149 peak orders per minute.
See a screenshot of the Shopify Plus homepage from the 23rd of April 2019.
November: Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) 2018
- Total BFCM weekend sales on the platform of $1.5 billion +.
- Peak sales per minute $870,000 and over $37 million USD in sales per hour.
- Peak orders per minute of 10,978.
- 18.54% of all orders placed with Shopify stores being shipped internationally.
- Packages from Shopify merchants will be shipped over 30 billion miles in total—ten times the distance between the Earth and Pluto. [There is clearly work to be done to reduce the carbon footprint on that!]
- 66% of sales from Shopify merchants happened on mobile during BFCM versus 34% on desktop.
- Conversion rates on various traffic sources (not a complete list): Email 4.38%; Direct 4.35%; Search 3.60%; and social 2%.
October: Third-Quarter 2018 Financial Results
Read the full announcement here.
October: Stores selling through Instagram
- Since launching the Instagram sales channel, 29,000+ stores have been actively selling through Instagram.
October: Opens first brick-and-mortar space in Los Angeles
- Shopify has opened its first physical storefront in Los Angeles.
- More than 10,000 merchants using Shopify in the greater Los Angeles area.
- 400 of those retailers have each earned over $1 million in gross merchandise volume.
Read the full report in Techcrunch
September: New App Store
- To date, merchants have spent more than $100 million in the Shopify App Store.
- More than 12 million app installs since 2011 when the App Store launched.
- 87% of merchants say that they rely on apps to run their business.
From Introducing the New Shopify App Store.
July: Second-Quarter 2018 Financial Results
- Shopify recorded the billionth order on the platform this quarter, according to this article in the Ottawa Business Journal.
- Total revenue in the second quarter was $245.0 million, a 62% increase from the same quarter in 2017.
- Subscription Solutions revenue grew 55% to $110.7 million driven primarily by an increase in the number of merchants joining the Shopify platform.
- Merchant Solutions revenue grew 68% to $134.2 million, driven primarily by the growth of Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), as well as by strong growth in Shopify Capital and Shopify Shipping, each of which more than doubled revenue over last year’s second quarter.
- Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) as of June 30, 2018 was $35.3 million, up 49% compared with $23.7 million as of June 30, 2017. Shopify Plus contributed $8.1 million, or 23%, of MRR compared with 18% of MRR as of June 30, 2017.
- GMV for the second quarter was $9.1 billion, an increase of $3.3 billion, or 56% over the second quarter of 2017.
- Gross Payments Volume (GPV) grew to $3.6 billion, which accounted for 40% of GMV processed in the quarter, versus $2.2 billion, or 38%, for the second quarter of 2017.
- At June 30, 2018, Shopify had $1.57 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, compared with $938 million on December 31, 2017.
- Shopify launched Shopify Payments in Japan, bringing the total number of countries where Shopify Payments is available to eight.
- Shopify Shipping adoption continued to increase with more than a third of eligible merchants in the United States and Canada using Shopify Shipping in the quarter.
- Purchases from merchants’ stores coming from mobile devices continued to climb in the quarter, accounting for 76% of traffic and 66% of orders for the three months ended June 30, 2018, versus 72% and 60%, respectively, for the second quarter of 2017.
- Shopify Capital issued $68.5 million in merchant cash advances in the second quarter of 2018, an increase of 84% versus the $37.2 million issued in the second quarter of last year. Shopify Capital has grown to nearly $300 million in cumulative cash advanced since its launch in April 2016, $80 million of which was outstanding on June 30, 2018.
- More brands joined Shopify Plus than ever this quarter with large brands such as K-Swiss and De Beers among them.
Read the full announcement here.
May: Partner statistics from Shopify Unite
- 600,000 merchants now on Shopify. Over 200,000 new merchants in 2017 alone.
- $26.3 billion GMV in 2017. Total sales to date for all merchants $55 billion.
- More than 70,000 retailers using Shopify POS in 2017.
- In 2017, Shopify made $673 million. In that same period, Shopify estimates that partners made $800 million. This is up from last year: Shopify $389 million and partner ecosystem $430 million.
- 85% of merchants have used partner products or services.
- $79 million paid out to partners in 2017 in total.
- $100 million paid out to date to App developers. More than half of that was paid out in 2017.
- From the new developers.shopify.com site, app payouts to developers: $1.7m in 2013, $3.9m in 2014, $8.4m in 2015, $20m in 2016 and $47.2m in 2017. Average annual earnings of $162k for the top 25% of app developers. Average earnings of $10k from a Shopify custom development project.
- More than 2,400 apps. 23 million App Store visits. More than 12 million installs from the App Store to date.
- On average merchants have 6 apps installed.
- 47% of Shopify merchants have been helped by a Shopify Expert.
- Partners built more than 25,000 stores in 2017.
- 100 partner meetups with 3000 attendees worldwide. In 59 cites and 24 countries.
- On merchants using mobile to manage their stores: 103% in monthly active users on mobile; and 230% growth in merchants that have only ever used Shopify Mobile (monthly active users again). From Lynsey Thornton's talk.
- In Q1 2018, 82% growth in shops in Asia and 168% growth in shops in South America.
May: First-Quarter 2018 Financial Results
- Total revenue in the first quarter was $214.3 million, a 68% increase from the comparable quarter in 2017.
- Subscription Solutions revenue grew 61% to $100.2 million.
- Merchant Solutions revenue grew 75% to $114.1 million, driven primarily by the growth of Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), which includes revenue from payments processing, transaction fees, Shopify Capital, referral fees from partners and Shopify Shipping, each of which grew more than 50% over last year’s first quarter.
- Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) as of March 31, 2018 was $32.5 million, up 57% compared with $20.7 million as of March 31, 2017.
- Shopify Plus contributed $7.0 million, or 22%, of MRR compared with 17% of MRR as of March 31, 2017.
- GMV for the first quarter was $8.0 billion, an increase of $3.1 billion, or 64% over the first quarter of 2017. Gross Payments Volume (GPV) grew to $3.0 billion, which accounted for 38% of GMV processed in the quarter, versus $1.8 billion, or 38%, for the first quarter of 2017. This is the amount of GMV processed through Shopify Payments.
- At March 31, 2018, Shopify had $1.58 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, compared with $938 million on December 31, 2017. The increase reflects the proceeds from Shopify’s offering of Class A subordinate voting shares in the first quarter.
- Purchases from merchants’ stores coming from mobile devices continued to climb in the quarter, accounting for 75% of traffic and 64% of orders for the three months ended March 31, 2018, versus 69% and 59%, respectively, for the first quarter of 2017.
Read the full announcement here.
February: Full Year 2017 Financial Results
- Total revenue for the full year 2017 was $673.3 million, a 73% increase over 2016.
- Within this, Subscription Solutions revenue grew 64% to $310.0 million, while Merchant Solutions revenue grew 81% to $363.3 million.
- Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) for 2017 was $26.3 billion, an increase of 71% over 2016.
- Gross Payments Volume (GPV) grew to $10.0 billion, which accounted for 38% of GMV processed versus $5.9 billion, or 38%, for 2016. This is the amount of GMV processed through Shopify Payments.
- See the full announcement for info on profit.
- Added offices in Vilnius and Berlin.
- Shopify Pay facilitated 4.8 million transactions from 2.1 million consumers since its launch in the second quarter of 2017.
Read the full announcement here.
February: Fourth-Quarter 2017 Financial Results
- Total revenue in the fourth quarter was $222.8 million, a 71% increase from the comparable quarter in 2016.
- Subscription Solutions revenue grew 67% to $93.9 million, driven by rapid growth in Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR).
- Merchant Solutions revenue grew 74% to $128.9 million, driven primarily by the growth of Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV).
- MRR as of December 31, 2017 was $29.9 million, up 62% compared with $18.5 million as of December 31, 2016.
- Shopify Plus contributed $6.3 million, or 21%, of MRR compared with 17% of MRR as of December 31, 2016.
- GMV for the fourth quarter was $9.1 billion, an increase of $3.6 billion, or 65% over the fourth quarter of 2016.
- Gross Payments Volume (GPV) grew to $3.5 billion, which accounted for 39% of GMV processed in the quarter, versus $2.2 billion, or 39%, for the fourth quarter of 2016. This is the amount of GMV processed through Shopify Payments.
- At December 31, 2017, Shopify had $938.0 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, compared with $392.4 million on December 31, 2016.
- The majority of purchasing from merchants’ stores came from mobile devices in the quarter, accounting for 73% of traffic and 61% of orders for the three months ended December 31, versus 69% and 55%, respectively, for the fourth quarter of 2016.
See the full announcement for more details.
December: Initial statistics on the accelerated checkout with Shopify Pay
- Shopify Pay was launched back in April/May. It provides a 3x accelerated checkout process to customers.
- Over Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM), over 400,000 people spent over $30 million using Shopify Pay.
- This increased conversion rates with two examples given of 4x and 2x on conversion rates for BFCM.
- More than 1 in 4 U.S. shoppers with intent to buy have abandoned their cart in the past quarter because the checkout process was too long or too complicated.
November: Over $1 Billion Sold by Shopify Merchants During BFCM 2017
- More than 500,000 merchants in 175 countries sold over $1 billion (USD) in gross merchandise volume during the Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend.
- At the peak, Shopify merchants also generated more than $1 million of transactions in just one minute. Beating last year’s high of $555,716 per minute.
- The top three product categories by sales volume were apparel (1.4 million), accessories (917,000), and housewares (531,000).
- Shopify merchants in California sold the most, with New York, Texas, Florida and Utah rounding out the top five biggest sellers.
August: Shopify Announces Second-Quarter Financial Results
- Total revenue in the second quarter was $151.7 million, a 75% increase from the comparable quarter in 2016.
- Subscription Solutions revenue grew 64% to $71.6 million. Merchant Solutions revenue grew 86% to $80.1 million, driven primarily by the growth of Gross Merchandise Volume.
- Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) as of June 30, 2017 was $23.7 million, up 64% compared with $14.4 million as of June 30, 2016.
- Shopify Plus contributed $4.3 million, or 18%, of MRR compared with 13% of MRR as of June 30, 2016.
- GMV for the second quarter was $5.8 billion, an increase of $2.5 billion, or 74% over the second quarter of 2016.
- Gross Payments Volume (GPV), as in payments processed through Shopify Payments grew to $2.2 billion, which accounted for 38% of GMV processed in the quarter, versus $1.3 billion, or 38%, for the second quarter of 2016.
- Shopify Payments went live in New Zealand so it is now available in six countries including U.S., Canada, U.K, Australia and Ireland.
- Gross profit dollars grew 83% to $86.8 million as compared with the $47.5 million recorded for the second quarter of 2016. Refer to the official release for more detail on the net loss.
- At June 30, 2017, Shopify had $932.4 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, compared with $392.4 million on December 31, 2016.
- The POS channel is the second largest channel for GMV.
- Mobile traffic to merchants’ stores continued to grow, reaching 72% of traffic and 60% of orders for the three months ended June 30, versus 69% and 59%, respectively, exiting the first quarter of this year.
- In the second quarter, Shopify Capital issued $37.2 million in merchant cash advances, nearly twice the amount issued in the first quarter. Since its launch in April 2016, Shopify Capital has grown to $86 million in cumulative cash advanced by June 30, 2017. This figure climbed to more than $95 million by July 31, 2017.
Read the official release here and reaction on Bloomberg here.
August: Shopify now powers over 500,000 businesses
A few new statistics released on August 1st:
- Shopify is now powering more than 500,000 businesses in 175 countries.
- More than 1.2 million people are actively using the Shopify backend platform.
- Since 2012, the number of merchants on the Shopify platform has grown annually at an average rate of 74%, and these merchants have achieved over $40 billion dollars in sales.
- Merchant growth in Q2 year over year was global, with a 56% increase in North America, 82% increase in Asia, 168% increase in South America, and 70% increase in Africa. No mention of Europe.
- Today, more women entrepreneurs than men have built their businesses on Shopify, at 52% and 47% respectively, with 1% other.
- Average age of Shopify merchants: 18 - 24 (7.3%); 25 - 34 (37.5%); 35 - 44 (30.0%); 45+ (24.9%).
- 131 million people have bought from Shopify stores in the last 12 months.
- Shopify merchants generated sales of over $100,000 per minute during Black Friday and Cyber Monday of last year.
- 1800 apps in the App Store with 7 million installs to date.
Read the full press release here.
July: A generation of Elgin Street millionaires
There's a nice article in the Ottawa Citizen, which has a few interesting stats:
- If Shopify stays on track then it will continue with plans to triple the size of its downtown Ottawa headquarters to 500,000 square feet by year-end 2021, and boost staff locally from 750 plus to roughly 3,000 over the same period.
- The company is now sitting on a cash mountain of nearly $1 billion U.S., which it intends to use to further invest in the business, perhaps acquire other firms, and provide rock solid stability for the balance sheet.
Read the full story in the Ottawa Citizen.
July: Top 4 shop industries on Shopify & some stats for apps
The largest industry on Shopify is fashion and apparel. It looks like it's about 3 to 4 times bigger than any other industry based on the graph.
- The top industries on Shopify are 1) fashion & apparel, 2) health & beauty, 3) home & furniture, and 4) food & drink.
- The three other fastest growing industries on Shopify are 1) pet products, 2) music and 3) adult products.
- By the end of their first year on the platform, the average Shopify store has 4 apps installed. This is up from previously.
- In 2016, half of the top 25 apps were published within the year. “The app store is ripe for disruption.”
Read: Why you should build apps that address merchant's pain points.
July: eBay to be added as a sales channel
The new channel will be rolled out in Autumn for U.S. based merchants. Inventory, orders and buyer messages will be sychronized between the two platforms. Shopify says that already more than 60% of the merchants on its platform sell in at least two different channels. eBay represents a potential new audience of up to 169 million active shoppers for merchants.
See the official press release and Techcrunch's take on the announcement.
May: Shopify announces first-quarter 2017 financial results
On the 2nd May 2017, Shopify announced their latest results:
- Total revenue in the first quarter was $127.4 million, a 75% increase from the comparable quarter in 2016.
- Subscription Solutions revenue grew 60% to $62.1 million.
- Merchant Solutions revenue grew 92% to $65.3 million, driven primarily by the growth of Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV).
- Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) as of March 31, 2017 was $20.7 million, up 62% compared with $12.8 million as of March 31, 2016. Shopify Plus contributed $3.5 million, or 17%, of MRR compared with 11% of MRR as of March 31, 2016.
- GMV for the first quarter was $4.8 billion, an increase of 81% over the first quarter of 2016.
- Shopify Capital reached $49 million in aggregate cash advances to U.S. merchants using Shopify Payments by the end of the first quarter. By April 30, 2017, aggregate cash advances had reached more than $60 million.
- For the full year 2017, Shopify expects revenues in the range of $615 million to $630 million.
Read the detailed announcement here.
April: Shopify Unites its partners
The second Shopify Unite conference took place in April. Attendance was up from 400 last year to more than 1000 partners this year. Some interesting statistics shared:
- 400,000 merchants.
- 1,000,000 active users (includes all store staff members).
- The Partner Economy, revenues earned by partners through themes, apps and services, was estimated at $430m for 2016 compared to Shopify's turnover of $389m for the year. There was $15.4 billion in merchant GMV for 2016.
- 100,000+ merchants were referred by a partner.
- 5,200,000+ third party apps installed.
- 635,000+ third party themes downloaded.
- 65,000+ merchants used Shopify POS in 2016. 50% of merchants will sell in-person in 2017.
- Over 40,000,000,000 calls to the API in 2017.
- 2,500+ merchants on Shopify Plus. 300+ employees working on Plus.
Read Shopify's summary of announcements or Fuel Made's Highlights from Shopify Unite 2017. Watch the conference on video.
February: Shopify boasts over 100,000 partners
"Shopify now boasts over 100,000 partners living in a diverse and thriving ecosystem across social media, private Slack channels, forum posts, coworking spaces, in-person events, on their couch wearing pyjamas, and behind computer screens all the way from Bangalore to Boston."
"Experts refer more business to Shopify than Partners do — which is significant to note, given that there are under 1,000 total Experts but 80,000+ Partners."
"The same compounded importance applies to the Plus (or enterprise) level. Less than 100 total Plus Experts and Plus Partners together refer and work with the lion’s share of Shopify Plus merchants, despite their modest numbers."
Read the full article on Medium.
February: 80K Shopify stores have at least one app installed
Not sure when this page from the Shopify Partners section of the website was last updated but it has some interesting statistics on the App Store. 80K Shopify stores have at least one app installed. 33K Shopify Apps are downloaded each month. 230K people visit the Shopify App Store each month.
January: New R&D office points to huge expansion ambitions
Techcrunch report on Shopify's second office opening in Toronto. The article reports that there are now 1,750 employees worldwide, with plans to scale up by another 700 employees in Toronto alone by 2019.
Read the full article on Techcrunch.
January: Amazon sales channel for U.S. merchants
For those merchants selling in USD, the Amazon sales channel is now available. Shopify estimates that 40% of merchants are already selling in online marketplaces. Sam Kemp, an analyst with Piper Jaffray said in an article on CNBC that the average Shopify user does $46,000 a year in volume through the Shopify platform.
More info on the Amazon sales channel here.
2016 Year in review
The annual report with the latest statistics for 2016:
- 377,500 merchants up 134,032 (+55%) from 2015.
- Shopify stores in 175 countries.
- Merchant growth on each continent: Africa +35%; Asia +65%; Europe +53%; North America +55%; Oceania +52%; South America +88%.
- Merchants added more than 290 million products this year.
- In 2016, more than 100 million online shoppers made purchases in Shopify stores. Up from 57 million in 2015.
- More people made their purchases on mobile (54%) than on desktop (46%).
- The overall total of purchases across the platform (GMV) doubled from $7.7 billion in 2015 to $15.3 billion in 2016.
- 1400+ apps. 100+ themes. 11,000+ active partners.
- 1900+ employees. 6 offices. Remote employees in 5+ countries.
Read the full Shopify Year in Review for 2016 here.
Shopify announce 4th quarter and full year 2016 results
On the 15th February 2017, Shopify announced their latest results:
- “That eight of our ten top sellers over the Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend were merchants that had upgraded from lower-priced plans reminds us that today’s startups become tomorrow’s superstars, at a velocity that appears to be increasing all the time." according to Tobi Lütke, founder and CEO.
- Total revenue for the full year grew 90% to $389.3 million, compared with $205.2 million in 2015. Within this, Subscription Solutions revenue grew 68% to $188.6 million and Merchant Solutions revenue grew 115% to $200.7 million.
- More than 133,000 net new merchants began selling on Shopify, which ended the year with approximately 377,500 merchants on the platform.
- Merchants on average became more successful on Shopify, as Gross Merchant Volume per merchant grew by 25% over last year.
- The number of partners referring at least one new merchant to Shopify in 2016 grew to more than 11,000, compared with more than 8,500 in 2015.
- Shopify Capital successfully launched, providing merchants with more than $30 million in aggregate in cash advances to help fuel their businesses by providing working capital for growth, such as securing inventory, hiring employees or marketing activities.
- Shopify launched Apple Pay for the web, and by year end, more than 150,000 of Shopify’s merchants had elected to offer Apple Pay as a means for checkout. These merchants saw conversion rates approximately double by shoppers who have enabled Apple Pay.
Read the results in full here.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2016
At its peak, over $555,716 in transactions occurred in a single minute. The peaks in orders on the two days were different. More and more orders are passing on mobile, but interestingly while on Friday more orders passed on mobile, on Monday orders passed on desktop pushed slightly ahead. Black Friday now reaches beyond the U.S. into Europe, particularly in Spain, Denmark, Canada, and the U.K.
I found some of the most interesting facts in the bottom line of the article: "This data is from a subset of Shopify’s 325,000+ merchants who made less than $50M USD in sales through the Shopify platform in 2016 and have fewer than 100 staff accounts associated with their store." Clearly larger accounts are playing a more important role, so much so that they need to be excluded to avoid skewing the statistics.
November: Third quarter 2016 Earnings Release
Some odds and ends that caught my attention. Stores supporting Apple Pay have seen an increase in checkout conversion rate of up to 2x on mobile, and customers are able to checkout up to 60% faster with Apple Pay than with a credit card alone. To date, Shopify Capital has advanced more than $20 million to merchants. 30,000+ merchants have installed Facebook Messenger for their shops.
Read the Q3 2016 Earnings Release.
August: 300,000+ merchants
Shopify now has over 300,000 merchants using its platform. 🚀📈
— Craig Miller (@craigmillr) August 3, 2016
June: Build a Business VI Winners announced
Eight winners were announced. Statistics on the overall competition were pretty vague: thousands of eligible merchants; 45% of contestants indicated that they had never sold a product before; etc. The Shopify Merchant Survey figures were more interesting. There is now a 50:50 split between men and women for business owners. There are slightly more women using Shopify as staff members on a daily basis. 34.5% of merchants are 25 to 34 years old. The merchants aged 45+ has increased over the last two years from 23% to almost 30%.
March: Shopify Unite
The first Shopify Partner and Developer Conference. Over $10b of transactions (GMV or Gross Merchandise Volume) have passed through the Shopify platform (from CEO Tobi Lütke's keynote). Shopify partners are located in 5000+ cities and 150 countries throughout the world. 243,000 merchants on the platform. Partners have helped about a third of all merchants to get set up. One partner, Bold Commerce now has 80+ employees. In 2015: 50,000+ inquiries were sent to Shopify Experts; and 38,000+ themes purchased. (From COO Harley Finkelstein's keynote).
Year in review
Number of merchants on the platform: 84,073 in 2013: 144,670 in 2014; and 243,468 at the end of 2015, an increase of 98,000+ merchants.
Gross Merchandise Volume, or how much Shopify stores have made in total: $1.6b in 2013; $3.3b in 2014; and $14.3b as of 2015.
In December 2015, 46% of orders made through mobile commerce. Up from 33% in the same months in 2014 and 23% in 2013.
Merchants in 150+ countries. Revenue sources by country: 70% U.S.; 8% U.K.; 7% Canada; 5% Australia; 10% Rest of World.
Staff count: 1048.
May: Shopify IPOs in New York and Toronto
Shopify Inc. raised $131 million in its initial public offering. The company ended the day trading with a market value of about $1.9 billion. It doubled revenue to $105 million last year, with almost two-thirds coming from merchants’ subscriptions. The rest is generated through services for the small businesses. Shopify posted a net loss of $22.3 million in 2014. The stock is listed on the New York and Toronto Stock Exchanges under the symbol SHOP.
August: 50.3% of All Ecommerce Traffic on mobile
Looking at data from over 100,000 ecommerce stores that use the Shopify platform, 50.3% of traffic is coming from mobile (40.3% from mobile phones, 10% from tablets) and just 49.7% from computers. Facebook accounted for less than 5% of traffic to ecommerce sites on desktop, that number jumps to 7% when looking at mobile phones. In comparison, search based traffic from Google represented 18% of traffic from computers, but just 12% on mobile phones.