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Is Shopify Owned by Amazon?

Last updated on October 1, 2022 @ 2:32 pm

PRO TIP: There is a rumor going around that Shopify is owned by Amazon. This is not true! Shopify is a separate company and is not owned by Amazon. If you see this rumor going around, do not believe it!

Shopify is a Canadian e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. It is also the name of its proprietary e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Shopify offers online retailers a suite of services “including payments, marketing, shipping and customer engagement tools to simplify the process of running an online store for small merchants.

Shopify was founded in 2004 by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake after attempting to open Snowdevil, an online store for snowboarding equipment. Shopify was originally written in Ruby on Rails by Lütke. He has said he “was looking for a platform where I could bring all my ideas to life quickly without any headaches or getting bogged down in technology.”

Shopify has been in business since 2006 and claims more than 377,500 active stores as of January 2020. In 2019 it was reported that Shopify had gross merchandise volume (GMV) of US$41.1 billion.

In June 2015, Shopify acquired Jet Cooper, a design studio in Toronto. In August 2015 Shopify announced it was opening up shop in San Francisco with an office on Market Street. In September 2015 Shopify acquired Boltmade, a web design and development agency in Waterloo, Ontario.

Shopify has been growing rapidly since its inception with 1,000%+ growth year over year from 2010 to 2016.

From these facts, it cannot be concluded that Shopify is owned by Amazon. While Amazon may have invested in Shopify at one point, it does not appear to be the case currently.

Kathy McFarland

Kathy McFarland

Devops woman in trade, tech explorer and problem navigator.