Shopify statistics: Q1 2022

Founded in Ottawa, Canada in 2006, Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce business platform that helps digital sellers start, run and grow their businesses online. It’s a subscription-based software designed especially for anyone running an eCommerce business. Read on for more Shopify statistics.

Shopify allows anyone to set up a store online and easily sell their products. One of the most popular eCommerce platforms on the planet, Shopify has a 23 percent market share in the US alone. In 2021, 1.75 million merchants sold on Shopify, and 1.59 million active websites used Shopify to power their eCommerce offering. The company’s total revenue for 2021 was $4,611.9 million, a 57% increase over 2020. 

How Shopify Works

Shopify offers eCommerce businesses a straightforward way to quickly and easily launch their business and start selling anywhere in the world. The software is highly customisable, so users can create bespoke online shops using Shopify’s many apps and plug-ins. Its APIs make building an online shop from the ground up easy, but Shopify also offers Exchange, its marketplace for ready-build business websites, ideal for those who prefer a pre-made shop rather than building one from scratch. 

By providing variable options for either an ‘out-of-the-box’ store running quickly and easily or the opportunity to build a highly customised, branded shop, Shopify is versatile enough to serve every business need and is designed to grow with businesses as they scale. 

Shopify Lite is aimed at smaller businesses, offering an affordable subscription plan that offers basic Shopify support. Customers using Shopify Lite to power their eCommerce business can integrate Shopify with their existing website, selling using Shopify’s ‘Buy Button’. 

For larger businesses (between $1 million – $500 million revenue), Shopify offers Shopify Plus, an enterprise eCommerce platform. Shopify Plus comes with advanced reporting capabilities, the ability to handle a higher volume of orders and high priority customer service. Over 5,300 businesses (6% of online stores) use Shopify Plus.

Not content to support eCommerce alone, Shopify now also offers Shopify POS, a point-of-sale product that supports offline businesses selling products in physical spaces, whether inside of a shop, market stall, or event. Shopify POS allows such businesses to accept payments during physical transactions using iOS or Android, via the POS app. Shopify POS powers over 100,000 merchants. 

In terms of sales volume, Shopify is the second-largest eCommerce platform in the United States, following Amazon and just ahead of eBay. 

Shopify Statistics at a Glance

• More than 1.75 million merchants sell on Shopify around the world.
• Shopify received more than 58 million visits in 2020.
• Shopify is the fastest-growing online store builder.
• 457 million people purchased from a Shopify store in 2020, an increase of 52.33% over the previous year. 
• Large brands, including Pepsi, Sephora, Nestle, Gymshark, Unilever, WaterAid, Redbull, and Tesla Motors, all use Shopify.
• Top-grossing companies on Shopify have annual revenues of $7 to $11 billion.
• The top three companies using Shopify are Tesla, Sephora and Nestle. 
• Shopify has seen steady merchant growth since 2012, from 42,000 merchants in that year to 1.75 million today. 
• 457 million people bought from a Shopify store in 2020, an increase of 52.33% over the previous year.
• More than 80% of Shopify retailers use third-party apps, with 25.8 million apps having been installed.
• There are over 7,000 Shopify apps available on Shopify App Store, across 12 different categories. The average Shopify merchant uses six apps to enhance their store. Shopify offers free and paid apps to help merchants build their businesses.
• Shopify is the third-leading eCommerce software platform in the US and one of the biggest names in the US eCommerce software market.
• Per Google Trends data, Shopify is the most searched eCommerce solution by users on the Internet.
• Shopify has nearly 11% of the total eCommerce platforms market share, putting it ahead of WooCommerce Checkout, WixStores, and Magento.
• In 2020, Shopify had 24% of the global eCommerce market.

Shopify Sales Statistics

• Shopify as a company posted a total revenue figure of $4,611.9 million for the full year of 2021 —  that’s a 57% increase over its revenue in 2020. 
• In 2021, Shopify merchants sold $175.4 billion on Shopify’s platform—up 47% from 2020. 
• Since 2019, Shopify has almost tripled its revenue. The past two years have been highly lucrative for the company. 
• Shopify’s total global platform sales are estimated at $200 billion to date.
• Over 50% of Shopify stores see repeat purchases. 
• 62 million buyers have purchased from the same Shopify store twice —  that’s 14% of all buyers overall. 
• The average revenue per Shopify customer in 2020 was $72.
• Only half of the eCommerce stores that use Shopify run online businesses actively.
• The holiday shopping season is key for Shopify merchants: November is the most successful month for Shopify sellers, while December is the least.
• At 4.29%, the highest conversion rate for Shopify stores comes from email, followed by search (3.04%), direct (2.93%) and social (1.81%).
• 79% of the total traffic to Shopify is driven by mobile devices, and 69% of all order traffic comes via mobile.
• More than 60% of social media visits to Shopify stores come from Facebook.
• The 1.75 million merchants operating on Shopify contributed to $319 billion in global economic activity.
• In 2020, Shopify businesses created $307 billion in global economic impact and supported 3.6 million full-time jobs globally. 
• As of Q1 2022, Shopify as a business is valued at $86.27 billion. 

Shopify Categories

• Clothing & apparel is Shopify’s most popular category, with 75.5 thousand Shopify stores selling clothing.
• In particular, t-shirts and tops are the #1 best-selling items across the board on the Shopify platform.
• In the UK, clothing & apparel comprise 27.5% of Shopify stores —  also the most popular category for that country. 14.9% of UK Shopify stores sell home and garden products and 11.5% beauty and fitness products. 
• Shopify’s second-largest category is home and garden, with 33.8 thousand shops on the platform in this category. 
• 6.2 thousand Shopify stores sell automotive parts.
• The three biggest industries on Shopify Plus are retail (17%), apparel & fashion (11%) and computer software (6%). Together, these make up 34% of sales on Shopify Plus. Other categories on Shopify Plus (in order of popularity) include wholesale, consumer goods, health, wellness & fitness, IT services, Internet services, marketing & advertising services, and cosmetics. 
• The most successful Shopify sites are owned by Budweiser, Tesla, and Red Bull. 

Shopify Statistics Around the Globe 

• Shopify stores run businesses in 175 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Netherlands, Brazil, India and New Zealand.
• Shopify’s platform supports 20 languages. 
• About two-thirds of Shopify stores are based in the Americas, with 71.27% of domains using Shopify being registered in the U.S, followed by the UK and Australia.
• Europe accounts for 17% of Shopify’s market share.
• Shopify has 3.9% of the market share in Germany and 2.7% in Spain.
• 15% of online shops in Denmark use Shopify, 8% of online shops in the Netherlands, Norway and Luxembourg, 5% in Sweden, and 4% in the United Arab Emirates. 
• The amount of active UK-based Shopify stores continues to grow, as shown by a 55% year-over-year increase in the UK in 2021. 
• The number of entrepreneurs who launched online businesses in the UK using Shopify increased by 106% last year.
• With an average transaction amount of $141.72, Japanese consumers are the biggest spenders on Shopify stores, followed by Canadian consumers at $100.66 per average transaction.
• The country with the lowest Shopify store transaction amount is France, which sees an average transaction worth $65.04.
• Shopify customers in Germany are the fastest to make a purchase; on average, German customers only take 17.5 minutes to complete a purchase.
• Shopify sees 2.1 million daily active users around the world. 
• The only physical Shopify store is in Los Angeles, CA, USA. 
• Shopify is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms on the planet, with a 23 percent market share in the US alone.
• In the UK, Shopify’s market share is 20%, just behind WooCommerce. The majority of UK Shopify stores are based in England (22,107), with Scotland coming in second (1,470) and Wales in third (659).
• In 2021, Shopify was the biggest name in the U.S. eCommerce software market, used by roughly 29 percent of websites that use eCommerce technologies. 
• Shopify aims to be “the world’s first global retail operating system” in the rapidly growing global eCommerce environment.

Shopify User Demographics

• 52% of Shopify customers are women. 
• About a third of Shopify customers are Millennials.
• Most Shopify sellers are first-time entrepreneurs.
• 35.7% of traffic to Shopify stores comes from the US.
• The majority of Shopify merchants reside in the US, followed by the United Kingdom and Australia.
• The average visitor spends over 3 minutes on Shopify and goes through more than three stores.
• Shopify customers are twice as likely to purchase a product if it has a 3D product image rather than a flat image.

Statistics references:

Want more like this? Check out these Amazon and eBay statistics.