OpenStore Raises $75M to Acquire More Shopify Sellers • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenStore Raises $75M to Acquire More Shopify Sellers

#41

Post by afsafsaf » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

moneywoes wrote: post #39

mountainb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's what they are.

It makes me question what they’re hiring so many engineers for.

Well the valuation process is somewhat automated (they basically need to pull in transactional and user data from shopify into some financial model) which does require engineers.

Re: OpenStore Raises $75M to Acquire More Shopify Sellers

#42

Post by Closi » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 10:05 PM UTC

moneywoes wrote: post #39

mountainb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's what they are.

It makes me question what they’re hiring so many engineers for.

I assume there's lots of stuff they need engineers for - I imagine managing loads of Spotify stores simultaneously has some strange requirements around inventory management, ordering stock from suppliers, returns, providing customer support e.t.c.

Re: OpenStore Raises $75M to Acquire More Shopify Sellers

#43

Post by jgalt212 » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 10:48 PM UTC

moneywoes wrote: post #39

mountainb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's what they are.

It makes me question what they’re hiring so many engineers for.

There like Zillow, but instead of buying homes, they're buying small businesses and given the valuation differences for small vs large business (as said above), it seems like this would be hard to screw up.

Re: OpenStore Raises $75M to Acquire More Shopify Sellers

#44

Post by dominotw » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 11:38 PM UTC

impalallama wrote: post #16

Don't much care for any company that has "Open" in their name when their entire business model seems to be buying and consolidating other businesses under one umbrella.

i think open is a verb here not a noun.

Re: OpenStore Raises $75M to Acquire More Shopify Sellers

#45

Post by akban » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 11:47 AM UTC

Thought it was just last week I read an essay that basically said "don't build your castle [in this case, OpenStore], in someone else's kingdom [Shopify]".

Re: OpenStore Raises $75M to Acquire More Shopify Sellers

#46

Post by xtiansimon » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #2

When a merchant sells their long-tail business, can these folks run it just as well? I'm incredibly skeptical of that claim. Long tail screams boutique, special interest. Holy water blessed dog cushions, handmade driftwood furniture, custom embroidered Naruto vests, sex toys, and other random things. Can the venture equivalent of private equity really run these businesses and not drive them into the ground? Do the ma…

The extreme examples helped me imagine customer service would by necessity tend towards the generic interactions, like you expect from csr sourced overseas. Seems like no customer would be the wiser, and expect their favorite store has gone mainstream/is a success. As long as they can get their blessed dog bed accessories, customers won’t care much either I suspect.

But the real issue for me is what about the products? Will products get better by further design and development?

Or are we talking about another niche entirely? Crap products catering to customers with more money than sense?

Re: OpenStore Raises $75M to Acquire More Shopify Sellers

#47

Post by mountainb » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

jgalt212 wrote: post #43

moneywoes wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes me question what they’re hiring so many engineers for.

There like Zillow, but instead of buying homes, they're buying small businesses and given the valuation differences for small vs large business (as said above), it seems like this would be hard to screw up.

They're not flipping the businesses, they're running them. It's also possible to buy out multiple businesses from the same category, shutter some of the underperformers, and then enjoy the temporarily reduced competition in the category.

Re: OpenStore Raises $75M to Acquire More Shopify Sellers

#48

Post by boringg » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

melony wrote: post #31

boringg wrote: post #18

Seriously this sounds like a isht business. End result is squeezing all the merchants into one giant crappy company - all profit rolls up to OpenStore. This also kills off any creators willingness to bring newer products to the market on a continual basis as they no longer own the store. I guess alternatively what you end up is with a bunch of people who make stores quickly off a new product and sell to OpenStore, ri…

I don't understand the hate for this company. YC has funded multiple such aggregators (see Moonshot Brands) and I don't see any negative complaints about those.

Aggregators don't provide real value to the market they just collect revenue off the backs of the original products.