Microsoft is reportedly building its own ecommerce store-building platform that would compete with Shopify, according to ZDNet which reported Microsoft is responding to requests from its customers, particularly larger ones.
Shopify offers an ecommerce web-builder platform includes network, storage, integrated payment systems, templates and domain creation/hosting. It also provides customers with content management and marketing tools as part of its services starting at $29 a month for the basic offering. Shopify’s main competitors are BigCommerce, Oracle NetSuite and Magento/Adobe, along with smaller players WooCommerce, Volusion and Squarespace.
Shopify had more than 800,000 merchant customers and more than $1 billion in revenues in fiscal 2018. It offers app-development and agency partners for inventory management, order fulfillment, logistics, accounting and tax compliance. Microsoft has a number of these offerings through its Dynamics products and services.
Diginomica reported that Microsoft could try to buy up Shopify if it doesn’t create its own platform. Either way, the buzz was started when Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Global Retail and Consumer Goods Shelley Bransten told The Information that she has “a lot of respect” for Shopify and added it’s an area where Microsoft has its own ambitions.
“It’s something we’re looking at very seriously because our customers are asking us for it,” Bransten told The Information.