By the digits

1,069,000: Number of merchants on Shopify’s platform at the end of 2019 (pdf)

$5.1 billion: Global sales across Shopify’s platform during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend in 2020

$1 billion: Amount Shopify said in 2019 it would spend over the next five years building out a fulfillment network

$17: List price of Shopify stock for its debut on May 21, 2015

$1,069: Closing price of Shopify stock on Dec. 31, 2020

67%: Share of more than 500 investors surveyed by Benzinga at the start of 2021 who believe Shopify’s stock price will reach $2,000 by 2022

7.4%: E-commerce’s share of US retail sales in the third quarter of 2015

14.3%: E-commerce’s share of US retail sales in the third quarter of 2020

Shopify’s Covid surge

The pandemic supercharged growth of Shopify’s revenue, which comes from subscriptions, payment processing fees, and fees for add-on services such as fulfillment. The e-commerce boom Covid-19 triggered sent droves of merchants to set up digital stores on Shopify.

Shopify’s many partners

Shopify has a history of striking partnerships with companies to allow its merchants to easily list products for sale on their platforms. The deals keep coming, extending Shopify’s reach online. Companies it has made deals with since 2017 include:

But can it crack teleportation?

Shopify’s aim is to eliminate the e-commerce challenges entrepreneurs face, from setting up a store to shipping products to customers. On the company’s Oct. 29, 2020, earnings call, one analyst asked Lütke which remaining points of friction Shopify plans to tackle. Lütke replied:

It’s been just a question of time and capital allocation, so it’s certainly in scope for us to make the whole thing as simple as possible. I mean, the ideal way for us to do [that] with Shopify Fulfillment Network is employ teleportation. Like if we can figure out the physics related to that and can just make things appear on the desk right when you want them, then that would be awesome.

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