Shopify is a Canadian commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario that develops computer software for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Shopify was founded in 2004 by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake after attempting to open Snowdevil, an online store for snowboarding equipment. Unsatisfied with the existing e-commerce products on the market, Lütke, a programmer by trade, decided to build his own. Lütke used open source web application framework Ruby on Rails to build Snowdevil's online store, and launched it after two months' of development. The Snowdevil founders launched the platform as Shopify in June 2006. Shopify is a fully managed commerce platform that helps establish online businesses and provides retail …show more content…
The API allows developers to create applications for Shopify online stores and then sell them on the Shopify App Store. There are currently over 1000 free and paid apps. Several companies have developed apps that integrate with the Shopify platform. The Shopify Theme Store was unveiled in April 2010. The store allows developers to sell theme templates using the Shopify platform. Shopify released a free mobile app on the Apple App Store in May 2010. The app lets Shopify store owners view and manage their stores from iOS mobile …show more content…
Brick-and-Mortar and Pop-up Shops. Shopify POS is a mobile point-of-sale product that was designed for merchants that sell their products in-person at brick-and-mortar, pop-up shops, retail stores, events and craft shows. Shopify POS allows for seamless synchronization with a merchant’s product catalog, inventory, customer database and payment settings. For example, merchants using Shopify Payments can simply plug their credit card reader into an iPhone or iPad running Shopify POS and start accepting credit card transactions within minutes. These transactions are then recorded on their platform, giving a merchant a single view of their customers and all of their orders, regardless of the channel in which the transaction took place. 3. Social Media. Merchants can create a storefront on Facebook, allowing the merchant to sell directly to their audience on social media. 4. Mobile Apps. Merchants can use our mobile software development kit to build native mobile applications that offer the in-application purchase of products. 5. Other Channels. The Shopify App Store offers additional sales channels to our merchants such as online marketplaces. e. WHY SHOPIFY? Traditionally, merchants have been forced to address their commerce needs through one of two