What do Budweiser, Tesla, The New York Times, Bombas

Socks, and Kylie Cosmetics have in common? Each company

sells direct$-$to$-$consumer $($DTC$)$ merchandise primarily online. But

more, each has an online store created, managed, and powered

by Shopify$$the biggest e$-$commerce company that most people have never heard of$.$ In the age of DTC companies, Shopify

is behind$-$the$-$scenes business that takes care of everything for

anyone wanting to sell something online$$a genuine end$-$to$-$end

commerce platform for everyone from the young entrepreneur

who has never started a company to large, well$-$known corporations needing an online store.

The concept is simple. For a monthly fee, Shopify helps individuals or corporations sell their merchandise online. It supplies

everything merchants need to go online, including customizable store templates, inventory management systems, analytics, payment processing, and shipping. Shopify also provides

consultative services and a network of partners to handle

manufacturing, promotion, and order fulfillment. Shopify$$s platform not only sells merchandise directly from the merchant$$s

online store or mobile app, it plugs into a growing number of

broader platforms, including online marketplaces like Amazon,

social media channels like Instagram Stories, and even brickand$-$mortar locations. The system is completely cloud$-$based,

which means zero investment in hardware and software. It

also means that business owners can manage things from

anywhere on any device with an internet connection. In short,

Shopify$$s mission is to make e$-$commerce easier and better for

everyone.

Although that mission seems a bit lofty, Shopify is well on its

way. In $2015,$ the nearly $10-$year$-$old company went public at

a value of $$1\mathrm{.}3$ billion. The preceding year, Shopify$$s $140,000$

stores had sold more than $$3\mathrm{.}7$ billion worth of merchandise.

And Shopify has been lauded by experts and organizations the

world over for its growth and impact, including being named as

one of the world$$s most innovative companies by Fast Company

this year. How has Shopify come so far so fast yet remain relatively unknown to the average consumer?

From Snowboards to Startups

It all started in the early $2000$s in Ottawa, Quebec, when Tobi

L$$tke and Scott Lake met and bonded over their love of technology and snowboarding. The pair joined forces to open Snowdevil,

an online store selling high$-$end snowboards. Building the site

proved to be an exercise in frustration. Working with popular software options of the day, such as Microsoft Commerce

and Yahoo! Stores, was difficult and expensive. So L$$tke$$who

M$06\_$KOTL$1132\_18\_$GE$\_$C$06.$indd $2001/23/205$:$59$ PM

CHAPTER $6|$ Business Markets and Business Buyer Behavior $201$

had dropped out of high school at the age of $17$ to work as a

programming apprentice at Siemens$$decided to build his own

e$-$commerce platform from scratch. He came up with something

much simpler, faster, and more visually pleasing than anything

from existing web design vendors.

Snowdevil.com$$s sales were meager at best. But L$$tke and

Lake quickly realized that the most valuable entity they possessed

was the platform beneath Snowdevil. So in $2006$ they launched

Shopify as a platform for creating online stores. The going was

slow at first, but as they continued to improve the platform with

innovative tools, the client base grew steadily. Shopify also developed a corporate culture based on authenticity, free thinking,

and what the company calls the $$trust battery$$a perceptual

gauge of an individual$$s potential based less on what they$$ve

already done and more on what they might do in the future.

The Anti$-$Amazon

Building the Shopify e$-$commerce platform required carefully

defining what that platform is$.$ But key to Shopify$$s strategy is

also to define what the platform is not. In short, Shopify is not

a marketplace. Although Shopify sets up and runs e$-$commerce

operations for DTC companies, it operates in the shadows, silently and invisibly. So when customers visit Leesa.com to buy a

mattress, every interaction take place with Leesa, the company

and brand. Customers browsing for temporary tattoos at Tattly.

com know only that they are experiencing a selection of creative,

high$-$quality temporary tattoos exclusive to Tattly. When DTC

brands sell on Amazon$$whether fulfilled by Amazon or by the

third$-$party vendors$$customers are buying from Amazon, and

the brands themselves gain little by way of brand equity. But

visitors to the e$-$commerce stores powered by Shopify typically

have no idea that Shopify even exists, let alone that it$$s the company behind the engine that drives their interactions. The DTC

brand itself stands out, not the platform.

Shopify thinks of itself as the anti$-$Amazon, not because

it is against the e$-$commerce giant but because it offers DTC

companies a path to selling their goods that is so different in

concept