Earlier quoted context omitted.
And manage patches, worry about security, PCI compliance, data loss, etc.
And HA, site monitoring... the list is long.
Can't forget about performance.
Shopify and the Power of Platforms
131–140 of 176 posts
Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms
#132I predict that Shopify will eventually create an Amazon-like system where products from its merchants can be listed in a unified e-commerce frontend site all together. Not sure if I will be correct about this but I might as well try for a third correct prediction about Shopify: * Fulfilled by Shopify ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18524131 ) * Shopify POS ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6289827 ).
Interesting. Do you have a timeline for your prediction?
It would likely happen by May 2021. Thus within 2 years?
Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
you seem to forget about the credit card rates, which are the 2.9% of your sales. I don't know in other countries, but where I live you can get the same conditions than for a physical pos terminal from a bank with around 1% rate. a 2% of your sales can easily grow to something that you can optimize.
This isn't necessarily a fair comparison - card not present transactions have always had a much higher rate than point of sale transactions due to the increased risk of fraud. There's an open-ended question of if new entrants like Apple Pay can bring down those card not present fees thanks to their integration into your apple id, but tbd.
at least in europe with 3d secure authentication, it's easy to get rates under 1% for a new business. If you have big volume is easy to go downwards from that.
I get that using stripe or paypal it's easier sometimes, but for woocoomerce and alikes you usually have plugins already developed to use other payment platforms.
Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms
#134> "To that end, I would argue that for Shopify a high churn rate is just as much a positive signal as it is a negative one: the easier it is to start an e-commerce business on the platform, the more failures there will be. And, at the same time, the greater likelihood there will be of capturing and supporting successes." Yes and no. The excessive lowering of the barrier to entry is self defeating. That is, more store…
but Shoppify's model doesn't involve marketing, they leave all that up to the merchants. so shoppify itself isn't directly affected by this.
The supply of customers is not endless. It's in Shopify's best interest to optimize the churn to success ratio - not simply have more success stories. We all know the metric. Happy customer tell three people. Unhappy customer tell 10 or more.
That is, as the number of failed store owners grows so does the fiction and reputation debt for the Shopify brand.
Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms
#135> Shopify is giving merchants an opportunity to differentiate themselves while bearing no risk if they fail. In addition to this being a great position for Shopify, this is an amazing thing for merchants compared to Amazon's offering; it's the critical difference between "We'll sell your stuff" and "We'll empower you to easily sell your stuff" that leaves power and agency in the hands of individual companies. Semi-re…
What about traffic though? Amazon gives you traffic, user reviews, used confidence.
Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms
#136> Shopify is giving merchants an opportunity to differentiate themselves while bearing no risk if they fail. In addition to this being a great position for Shopify, this is an amazing thing for merchants compared to Amazon's offering; it's the critical difference between "We'll sell your stuff" and "We'll empower you to easily sell your stuff" that leaves power and agency in the hands of individual companies. Semi-re…
What about traffic though? Amazon gives you traffic, user reviews, used confidence.
Sure, you have to work to target your own audience and build the trust with them yourself, but it's a tradeoff that benefits you in the long run. Your not beholden to the whims "the platform" as many media companies learned the hard way by putting so much of their focus on Facebooks platform in the past decade.
Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
but Shoppify's model doesn't involve marketing, they leave all that up to the merchants. so shoppify itself isn't directly affected by this.
The supply of customers is not endless. It's in Shopify's best interest to optimize the churn to success ratio - not simply have more success stories. We all know the metric. Happy customer tell three people. Unhappy customer tell 10 or more. That is, as the number of failed store owners grows so does the fiction and reputation debt for the Shopify brand.
But is the Shopify brand featured prominently during the shopping experience?
I would assume no, given the article's assertion that Shopify is just a facilitator, which lets the shop's owner shine instead.
Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms
#138Here are some excerpts from my recent conversation with Shopify support:
Q: noticed that sockfancy.com is using shopify? is there a way to set things up like they do: user checks off the options they want and then they go directly to a single-page checkout for their subscription?
A: A subscription is a recurring order. For recurring orders they are using Recurring Orders & Subscription Box App by Bold, and Recurring Orders Enterprise, which is only available to Shopify Plus merchants.
Q: how about the single page checkout?
A: The single page checkout is also a feature of Shopify Plus plan, which starts at $2000 per month. They are also using cashier by Bold.
Q: It looks like those Bold plugins add commission costs of about 3% or more per sale?
A: I don't know the details of that, but again they are available only for Shopify Plus.
Yes it's true that you can set up a generic site cheaply, but for a site that actually works well and has single page checkout, etc. you get into some very big bucks, and also some very large sales commissions.
Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms
#139Here are some excerpts from my recent conversation with Shopify support: Q: noticed that sockfancy.com is using shopify? is there a way to set things up like they do: user checks off the options they want and then they go directly to a single-page checkout for their subscription? A: A subscription is a recurring order. For recurring orders they are using Recurring Orders & Subscription Box App by Bold, and Recurring…
Another point about hosted platforms: if they run slowly, there's not that much you can do to fix it. Here's a GTMetrix report for the aforementioned site:
https://gtmetrix.com/reports/sockfancy.com/gSNvns6s
Fully Loaded Time - 7.8s
Not sure anyone would think this is an acceptable amount of time to wait for a page to load.
Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms
#140Here are some excerpts from my recent conversation with Shopify support: Q: noticed that sockfancy.com is using shopify? is there a way to set things up like they do: user checks off the options they want and then they go directly to a single-page checkout for their subscription? A: A subscription is a recurring order. For recurring orders they are using Recurring Orders & Subscription Box App by Bold, and Recurring…
Actually, I would look into their Storefront API. You can build any application or customization that does anything you want and calls back to Shopify for product data. You can even create a checkout and link directly to it.