How Shopify is changing e-commerce with help from Facebook
The e-commerce company, Shopify has experienced continuous growth since 2010, and will soon challenge e-retail giants Amazon and eBay. Today, it has a presence in 150 countries and more than 165,000 merchants.
Unlike other e-retailers , Shopify offers a unique experience for both the seller and/or trade and consumer. Examples of this are the pages designed by vendors around the world are customized from the Shopify platform.
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Additionally, it has initiated a partnership with Pinterest, where retailers can sell products from its wall, and the buyer can pay electronically via Paypal or Bitcoin.
Another social network that Shopify has partnered to provide results to small businesses around the world is Facebook, with whom they organized educational seminars for the local entrepreneur with the Facebook event entitled Boost your Business , a tour of seminars that helps small business owners learn how to advertise on the social media platform.
Within the start of the tour of the United States, Business Review Australia had the opportunity to interview Satish Kanwar, Director of products for Shopify , who discussed the expansion plans of the platform, its differences from its competitors and more.
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BRAus: Why should small businesses know the Shopify platform?
SK: I think it’s important for small businesses to know they’re not in this alone and it’s very difficult to get a business off the ground. A lot of times an entrepreneur, or group of entrepreneurs, work hard day and night, and the great thing about Shopify is we provide not only the software tools that are essential for getting that business off the ground, but also the support. Shopify offers 24 hour free support to all of our customers around the world, and we have the most popular e-commerce guide which serve as amazing resources for people. So the important thing for small business owners is that they can look to Shopify to give them a hand across software support and resources.
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BRAus: What’s your current relationship with Facebook?
SK: We’ve been working closely with the facebook team for well over a year. Today, Shopify provides a Facebook store channel, which is a way for any small business or individual to list their products on their Facebook page directly. So what they can do inside of Shopify is add all of their products easily and connect that to their Facebook page. What happens is we keep those products synchronized with Facebook so anytime they change price, title or add a new product, we keep updating that automatically on their Facebook page itself. So any of their fans or people who engage with their business on Facebook keep getting a live view of products the business has to sell, and those link back to their own website. We’ve been working closely with Facebook to make that possible, and we think it’s the best solution of marketing. There’s a lot of businesses that sign up to Shopify just to use that today.
BRAus: what differentiates Shopify from their competitors in the market?
SK: I think what’s important to understand about Shopify is we stand behind our merchants businesses, not in front of them. Shopify is completely behind the scenes. No one is shopping with one of our small business customers knows they’re on a Shopify store. The great thing is it puts the business brand first and ensures we’re just helping power it. When our merchants sell things on market places like Amazon or others, they’re renting that space. Sometimes they don’t even get the data of who actually bought that product. We don’t feel that is a sustainable form of business for people as much as it is to have on their own and bring all of that customer order information into a place that is there own.
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BRAus: what are some of its commercial efforts on the global market?
SK: We have Shopify stores in more than 150 countries. Those are stores that are both stores selling online or using our point of sales solutions. We offer our software support to people all over the world.
BRAus: In what ways is the retail business changing due to e-commerce?
SK: I think what we’ve seen is consumer expectations have evolved quite a bit, and now people demand flexibility, choice and seamlessness across all the ways they interact with a business. So I think e-commerce has just been a natural accelerant to that, in that when I come on someone’s website, I’m coming on from a mobile device. That means I might be interacting with that business on their website while standing in their store. People have this access to information for purchase intent wherever they go and at all times of day. E-commerce has forced retail to always be on, and businesses have to adapt and communicate with their customers. That’s why at Shopify, we want to make sure all businesses — larger or small — have the technology to serve their customers in this way.