Picky shoppers get personal with spending: Shopify CEO

The president of e-commerce giant Shopify says consumers still have a healthy appetite for retail therapy, but are ditching random, unplanned spending as cost of living pressures bite.

Harley Finkelstein said last year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales weekends show that “the state of the consumer is incredibly healthy”. However, data on Shopify’s platform, which powers 25 per cent of e-commerce transactions in Australia, show shopper habits are changing towards fewer, more intentional purchases.

“There is far more intentionality right now — buying from brands that you really, really love. That’s different from indiscriminately buying a bunch of random things,” he told this masthead.

“I think that theme of intentionality will be around for a long time – that is the new paradigm of how we shop. I may not buy twelve different products, but I may buy three from brands that are personal to me.”

Shopify, which has a market capitalisation of $US44 billion ($64 billion), makes tools that power the operations of e-commerce businesses – including online checkout and point-of-sale systems for stores.

Shopify’s stock, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has been hammered over the past year as investors sold off tech stocks and the COVID-fuelled e-commerce boom slowed. Shares have declined by close to 75 per cent over the past year.

But Finkelstein said the group is now expanding its focus beyond small and medium-sized retailers, with Shopify about to launch new software offer for larger retail clients.

Called ‘Commerce Components’, the product will let big businesses, many of whom have built their online retail systems internally, gain access to Shopify’s product tools and build the elements they want, like Shopify’s checkout functions, into their offers for customers.