Empowering eCommerce retailers – Shopify vs Amazon

Refreshing competition for eCommerce retailers

It’s no secret that Shopify wants to take on Amazon in terms of empowering online retailers through an alternative marketplace. With Amazon’s continued dominance of the market, it’s high time this monopoly encountered some healthy competition.

Shopify – the antithesis of Amazon

According to many industry competitors, Shopify are the team to step up to this challenge. This interesting article, ‘Circle Up’ talks about Shopify being the antithesis of Amazon. This is largely about the difference in business models. Amazon’s philosophy is around exponential growth and owning the entire customer journey, often at the expense of merchants. On the other hand, Shopify works with developers to create a host of tools for its merchants, and, unlike Amazon, remains invisible in the background.

So, what is Shopify’s plan? And how are they going to make great gains in terms of escalating what they do? It would appear that one starting point is by acquiring Deliverr in the States.

As Shopify says:

“Together with Deliverr, Shopify Fulfillment Network (SFN) will give millions of independent businesses, on and off Shopify, an end-to-end logistics platform to unlock fast and easy fulfillment,” said Aaron Brown, CEO of Shopify’s logistics group. “I am delighted to officially welcome the over 400 talented employees of Deliverr to Shopify. Our combined team strengthens SFN’s ability to manage merchant inventory from ‘port to porch’ as merchandise arrives at domestic ports, travels to and throughout the warehouse network, gets distributed across sales channels, and ultimately arrives at the consumer’s doorstep.”

Does Shopify have a plan for the UK and Europe?

We know that Shopify has continued plans to widen its reach in the UK and EU. Shopify is used by many of our retailers and is by far the predominant mode to launch and drive growth for an online brand. Its platform is easy to use and responsible for 80% of our integrations, as well as making up 50% of our revenue.

Shopify, we’re here and we’re Diamond

Whilst Diamond may not be a VC backed behemoth like Deliverr, we do have a unique network partnership programme that has enabled us to establish a technology based, asset free, delivery network that achieves the same thing.

Our current revenue may be smaller, but with our foundation and growth plans, we have the same potential, not just in the UK but throughout Europe as well. Our logistics management technology, Despatchlab has been designed and continues to be developed to enable scalability and integrates with European carriers. There’s truckloads of economies of scale and insights to be had in these markets.

This is not a ‘for sale’ sign but rather a ‘call to arms’ to lean into the only UK network of its kind. We provide not only the technological infrastructure, but also the physical premises and established integration links into Shopify retailers in the UK already.

So, to the Head of Logistics for Shopify, Aaron Brown, it would be great to talk. We are eager to show you how Diamond can help Shopify to deliver.