- Shopify sites drew more online traffic than Amazon's for the first time last quarter.
- It reflects Shopify's rapidly growing reach in online shopping.
- Shopify's emergence is a growing concern for Amazon.
Shopify is now bigger than Amazon by at least one measure: online traffic.
The number of unique visitors to all the Shopify-powered sites surpassed that of Amazon last quarter for the first time, according to the market-research firm Similarweb.
The average monthly unique visitors for the e-commerce sites powered by Shopify during the three months ending in June was 1.16 billion, Similarweb's data showed. That was greater than Amazon's 1.10 billion average monthly unique visitors during the same period. The gap between the two is expected to widen this quarter, as Shopify-powered sites are anticipated to draw 1.22 billion monthly unique visitors versus Amazon's 1.13 billion.
The spike in Shopify's aggregate traffic reflects the company's rapidly growing reach in online shopping. Each month since May 2020, Shopify sites had an average year-over-year traffic growth of 108.5%, according to Similarweb. Amazon had a 9.9% expansion rate during the same period.
"This is the first time we're seeing that Amazon has a strong competitor in terms of reach," Ed Lavery, Similarweb's director of investor solutions, told Insider. "Amazon now has a significant competitor out there."
The data includes global web traffic from desktop and mobile users but not individual mobile applications. For Amazon, it excludes traffic to its nonretail sites, like Prime Video. Shopify's data, meanwhile, includes visitors to its publishing sites that make up only a negligible portion of its total traffic, according to Similarweb.
Amazon's spokesperson declined to comment. Shopify's representative did not respond to a request for comment.
'A growing concern for Amazon'
Shopify and Amazon may not be direct competitors because Shopify doesn't sell anything directly to consumers or operate a marketplace like Amazon does. But the two companies effectively compete over the same online merchants since Shopify offers various online services that help them sell online, such as the technology needed to run a website and accept online payments.
It's why Amazon created an internal task force called Project Santos last year to go after Shopify's core small-business merchants, Insider and The Wall Street Journal have previously reported. One of the early projects the team is working on is a new type of point-of-sales system, Insider reported earlier this month.
In terms of sheer size, Amazon is still vastly bigger than Shopify. Amazon generated $386 billion in total revenue last year, compared with Shopify's $2.9 billion. Amazon is estimated to have sold $490 billion worth of products last year, more than quadruple that of all Shopify merchants combined ($120 billion).
Still, Shopify's emergence is concerning for Amazon as the smaller e-commerce company cuts into its market share, Similarweb's Lavery said. It's particularly worrisome given that many merchants perceive Shopify's service to be more "friendly" than Amazon's, in terms of user fees and flexibility in pricing and customer data, he said.
"Shopify provides a much more vendor-friendly environment to distribute their products," Lavery said. "It's a growing concern for Amazon."
Do you work at Amazon? Contact reporter Eugene Kim via the encrypted messaging apps Signal/Telegram (+1-650-942-3061) or email (ekim@businessinsider.com).
