Checkout and Entrepreneurship Key to Shopify's Future Ambitions
I tend to watch what a company does rather than what they say, and according to Shopify's actions, here is what they have been up to in the last year:
1 - Becoming more efficient and recalibrating the technology leadership and layers (meeting cancellations, layoffs/removing layers and Tobi as CTO again).
2 - Getting better at speaking Wall St. language (New CFO)
3 - Heavily investing in Checkout (Spring Editions = checkout overhaul)
4 - Launching a Global Entrepreneurship Index.
5 - Releasing a Global Checkout Study
Thoughts and Conclusions:
1 - Shopify's message is about owning two concepts: entrepreneurship and checkout.
(Owning yet a third concept is challenging and likely not in the cards -- this leaves "payments/financial services" and "enterprise" on the outside looking in).
2 - Shopify's focus on entrepreneurs is unlikely to change. Likely Shopify views this as a strength, and a source of future, growing brands that are what a VC might call "proprietary lead flow" which can't help but upgrade to Plus.
You don't launch a global entrepreneurship index 5 months after launching an Enterprise offering if you desire to own the "Enterprise" concept first and foremost.
3 - Shopify's Enterprise focus is about checkout. If Enterprise customers do not desire checkout, Shopify does not appear to have a backup plan.
In some degree of irony, in this market Shopify kicked out Bolt, Fast, etc., and has become Bolt, Fast, etc.
4 - As a follow on, in the short-term Shopify's path of least resistance is to convince any restless Plus merchants to stay on Shop Pay / Checkout, and decouple the rest. This, in essence, is Shopify Enterprise.
5 - Shopify Components as an entry point for new customers who do not need Checkout as their top priority seems like it's not a thing.
Thoughts and musings on a Tuesday....
Checkout is a Powerful Concept to Own
Having spent the last 20+ years in eCommerce building software for merchants, there are always a lot of ways to prioritize a roadmap.
1 - What are the things that will help merchants be more efficient?
2 - What are the things that will improve our buyer's experience
All things being equal, how I have observed merchants act is that the second point is almost always the most important factor. I've rebuilt checkout solutions at multiple companies.
And in every case, checkout is always WAY MORE VALUED than you think.
In other words, do merchants value their own flexibility and efficiency or their buyer's checkout experience more? More merchants more often seem to value checkout, in my experience.
All things being equal.
So I do not think anyone should in any way underestimate the value of Shopify's network and checkout in the market.
