Will Shopify build a D2C Marketplace?
Shopify wants to be the “brand behind the brand." This is directly from Shopify's COO Harley Finkelstein.
It says a lot about their own direct-to-consumer ambitions. By which I mean, they don't have any in the short-term. I've stopped predicting a Shopify marketplace. You'll be waiting a while folks.
Shopify's Harley Finkelstein appeared on Cramer's Mad Money and I listened to it so you don't have to.
When Tobi was originally out raising money for Shopify he had a lot of problems. Why? No one knew the brand. It's not obvious who uses them. Investors didn't believe he could really be powering that much eCommerce. But he was.
A few things Shopify could do instead of building a marketplace:
Whitelabel one and get someone to run it for them (they do this for some smaller functions today - i.e. Shop Pay payments which are powered by Stripe).
Make a big acquisition and have someone report into Tobi to run it for them.
Make a big partnership with Facebook to help make driving traffic easier. I really doubt that one of the existing Shopify execs wants to be responsible for the massive D2C marketing investment required to launch a marketplace. UNLESS.... there is some kind of growth-hacker element to it.
Never say never….. Remember, they are gaining marketplace learnings in a different way through their robust B2B ecosystem.