Shopify Looks To Affiliates But Should Focus On Advertising

Some interesting from The Information - Shopify is making moves into the affiliate marketing world.

Rumor has it Shopify has approached several big publishers about making it easier for them to promote products in Shopify's network of sites.

While I think this would be an interesting move, I think this could just be the tip of the iceberg for Shopify. We all know that Shopify is not a typical eCom software company content to make money on just its platform. Things like payments (competition with Paypal!) make that clear.

It would be much more interesting to me if Shopify were to become its own display ad network - allowing its entrepreneurs worldwide to create and "sell" their ad inventory to Shopify which would then resell it to those looking to promote themselves online. This is really a big part of Amazon's crown jewel these days.

I think a lot of entrepreneurs might not understand linking people off their own site, and the traffic level of some of these sites may not support it, but there are enough good-sized sites on Shopify where it would be interesting for Shopify itself to become a media platform.

It's certainly a higher margin business than any investments in supply chain / fulfillment for them!