We’ve had our fair share of coverage of ecommerce brands taking to brick-and-mortar, but the most recent could be the most unexpected. Canadian based ecommerce platform company, Shopify, is moving from cloud-based to creating a physical retail space.
As the leading multi-channel commerce platform, Shopify operates more than 600,000 stores online in approximately 175 countries, small startups to big brands like Nestle, Red Bull, and Rebecca Minkoff. Built around accessibility and ecommerce education, the brand recognized it needed to go deeper though in order to create a community connection and meet their customers where they are.
“We want more online-first merchants to open retail stores, and more retail stores to run online — because, ultimately, that’s going to lead to more merchant success. We know that entrepreneurship can be lonely, isolating and hard so we wanted to create a hub where people can gather to find support, inspiration and community,” stated a Shopify spokesperson.
To let customers explore and identify the right solutions for their needs, the storefront will feature a showroom with Shopify products including point-of-sale equipment, barcode scanners, cash drawers, and the brand’s new Tap & Chip reader. In addition to daily one-on-one workshops conducted by Shopify experts, the space will host evening and weekend programs for community groups, meet-ups, panel discussions and other networking events.
The opening is slated for the end of this summer in an undisclosed location, but given Apple-esque analogies, we’ll be curious to see if the brand explores a major metropolitan city or an urban environment for the community space.
According to Intuit, projections show that the number of U.S. small businesses will grow to over 42 million by 2026. With the changing nature of retail, Shopify serves position itself with this retail endeavor as a small business hub for support, inspiration, and education.