Shopify
By Shopify Inc.
Shopify is a cloud-based e-commerce platform that lets businesses create, manage, and scale online stores, handling hosting, payments, inventory, and checkout without requiring the merchant to manage their own infrastructure.
Definition
Shopify is a cloud-based e-commerce platform that lets businesses create, manage, and scale online stores, handling hosting, payments, inventory, and checkout without requiring the merchant to manage their own infrastructure.
Overview
Shopify is the dominant SaaS platform purpose-built for e-commerce, used by businesses ranging from small independent sellers to large global brands. Merchants set up a store using customizable themes, manage products and inventory through an admin dashboard, and rely on Shopify's built-in checkout, payment processing (Shopify Payments, alongside third-party gateways), tax handling, and shipping integrations, all hosted on Shopify's infrastructure without the merchant needing to manage servers. Beyond the core store, Shopify's App Store offers thousands of third-party integrations covering marketing, accounting, fulfillment, and customer support, and its Shopify Liquid templating language plus theme and API ecosystem let developers customize storefronts or build headless commerce experiences using Shopify's Storefront REST API and GraphQL APIs. Shopify also offers point-of-sale hardware and software, letting merchants unify online and in-person sales in one system. Compared to general-purpose website builders like Wix or Squarespace that added e-commerce as a feature, Shopify was built e-commerce-first, and competes more directly with other dedicated online store platforms such as BigCommerce, Magento, and open-source options like PrestaShop and OpenCart.
Key Features
- Fully hosted SaaS platform — no server or infrastructure management required
- Built-in checkout, payment processing, tax, and shipping integrations
- Customizable storefronts via Shopify Liquid templating and themes
- Large App Store ecosystem for marketing, fulfillment, and operations tools
- REST and GraphQL Storefront APIs for headless and custom commerce builds
- Integrated point-of-sale hardware and software for omnichannel selling
- Scales from single-product stores to large, high-volume global brands