Why Shopify is Amazon's direct competitor?
There are several reasons why Amazon sees Shopify as a real competitor.
1st
Being an e-commerce platform, the most important thing besides traffic is the third-party sellers. And with Shopify's big hit last year, Shopify has become more and more of a threat to Amazon in terms of getting third-party sellers on both sides. Even in a previous antitrust hearing, Amazon said outright that Shopify is its direct competitor.
2nd
Ben Thompson of Stratechery says: "Everyone in business is in the anti-Amazon coalition. Shopify, BigCommerce, Facebook, Google, Walmart, and others have formed partnerships to help each other. "
3rd
218 million people have already bought something from Shopify and don't know it exists. The difference with Amazon is that Shopify is a platform and doesn't engage directly with customers. Whereas Amazon needs to acquire customers and move suppliers and sellers to its platform in its way, Shopify allows sellers to differentiate without taking the risk of failure. This is why Shopify is Amazon's biggest competitor in the long run.
4rth
Amazon sellers have realized that more and more people are shopping on standalone sites than ever before. Shopify happens to be a popular site-building tool. The number of sellers opening shops on Amazon will probably continue to decrease over the next few years, and they will open shops on Facebook and Instagram.
Perhaps the idea behind Project Santos is that it should be easier for Amazon sellers to run their own DTC sites. Amazon's focus on dealing with Shopify is not because of Shopify's tools, but rather the trends that Shopify represents.
These trends don't pose a threat to Amazon now, or even in the next few years. But with the growth of e-commerce, Amazon's position is starting to be threatened. Because every product on Amazon is also available elsewhere, most shoppers on Amazon will also shop elsewhere.
【Source text: by report】