When OpenAI announced “Buy it in ChatGPT” it quietly changed how online shopping works. Users can now ask ChatGPT to find, compare, and buy products directly without visiting a website. Etsy was the first to join, and soon after, more than a million Shopify sellers followed.
That was surprising. Shopify built its brand around helping entrepreneurs create and customize their own stores. For over a decade, the company’s message was about independence and ownership. Yet now, it allows ChatGPT to sell products without showing those stores at all. Why would a company give up something it spent years perfecting? To answer that, we first need to understand what Shopify and Etsy actually do.
What Shopify and Etsy Actually Do
Shopify is one of the largest e-commerce platforms in the world and Canada’s most valuable publicly traded company, worth about C$280 billion (approximately US$205 billion) as of its Q2 2025 earnings. Founded in Ottawa in 2006, it enables entrepreneurs to build online stores, manage inventory, process payments, and ship products to customers. If Amazon is like a digital mall where sellers rent space, Shopify provides the tools to build an independent store. It gives merchants control over their brand, website, and customer relationships.
This model helped Shopify grow quickly. By simplifying e-commerce, it allowed millions of small businesses to sell directly to consumers. Over time, Shopify became the backbone of online entrepreneurship and one of Canada’s biggest technology success stories.
Etsy, founded in 2005 in the United States, is a global marketplace focused on unique, handmade, and vintage goods. It connects individual creators with consumers seeking personalized or artisanal products. Unlike Shopify, Etsy sellers operate within Etsy’s platform rather than building their own websites. Etsy owns discovery and brings traffic to sellers. Shopify gives sellers freedom but expects them to find customers on their own. Both companies joined OpenAI’s “Buy it in ChatGPT” initiative, but for different reasons.
The 73.5% Secret
Shopify’s financial results explain much of this move. In 2024, only 26.5% of its revenue came from subscription solutions, which include monthly fees, themes, and apps that store owners pay to use Shopify’s software. The remaining 73.5% came from merchant solutions, which include payment processing, currency conversions, and shipping services.
The shift in revenue mix shows how the business has evolved. In the second quarter of 2025, merchant solutions grew 37%, while subscription solutions grew 17%. Shopify’s growth now depends less on how many stores it helps create and more on the total sales volume that passes through its system. In 2023, 58% of all Shopify sales went through Shopify Payments.
In 2024, that number rose to 62%. Overall, six out of ten transactions flow through Shopify’s financial network.
Shopify no longer grows by helping people build stores. It grows by helping sellers complete transactions. Whether customers ever visit a Shopify-branded storefront is becoming irrelevant, as long as the payment passes through Shopify’s pipes.
The Arms Dealer Model and Its Limits
To understand Shopify’s strategy, it helps to compare it with Amazon. Amazon owns discovery. Sellers list products, and Amazon brings customers to them. Its value proposition is simple: “We will bring you traffic.” Shopify sells independence. It gives merchants full control over their brand, data, and experience, but it does not bring traffic. Sellers must attract their own customers.
Technology analyst Ben Thompson once described this difference as Amazon being an aggregator that controls demand and Shopify being an arms dealer that supplies tools to independent rebels. But being an arms dealer has a problem. Every time the battlefield changes, new weapons are required.
In the early 2010s, discovery happened through Google, so Shopify built search optimization tools. In the mid-2010s, discovery moved to Facebook and Instagram, so Shopify developed social commerce integrations. Sellers thrived using Meta ads. Then, in 2021, Apple changed the rules.
When Apple Turned Off the Lights
Apple introduced its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy, which required apps to ask for permission before tracking user data. Most people declined. This single change disrupted the digital advertising model that powered most direct-to-consumer brands. Customer acquisition costs soared, and ad attribution accuracy fell by as much as 70%.
For Shopify’s merchants, this was devastating. They could no longer see which ads drove sales. Marketing, once a data-driven science, became guesswork. Shopify’s sellers lost their ability to grow efficiently, and Shopify lost one of its biggest growth engines. The company needed a new way for its merchants to reach customers and measure success.
Then the Lights Came On Again
By 2024, consumer behavior had shifted again. According to PwC’s 2024 Consumer Intelligence Series survey, 58% of shoppers said they preferred using generative AI for product recommendations. Instead of thinking “I’ll search on Amazon” people began thinking “I’ll ask the AI”.
For Shopify, this was a turning point. AI solved two major problems at once. First, attribution became possible again. Transactions that occur directly inside ChatGPT are easier to measure than anonymous clicks from social media. Merchants could finally see what worked.
Second, discovery changed hands. Amazon’s dominance has always come from being the starting point for product search. But if the starting point moves to AI, Shopify can reach customers before they ever reach Amazon. A potential crisis turned into a strategic opportunity.
From Interface to Infrastructure
In the early days of e-commerce, success meant building a beautiful online store. Today, customers can buy a product simply by talking to an AI. The interface is losing importance.
Shopify’s strategy is to control the infrastructure behind those interactions. It already processes more than 60% of its sellers’ payments. Integrating with ChatGPT ensures that, regardless of where a purchase begins, on a website, social platform, or AI assistant, the transaction still flows through Shopify’s network.
It may look like Shopify gave up its interface to ChatGPT, but that is not the full story. Shopify is repositioning itself from being the face of online retail to being the invisible engine that powers it. This shift is logical for a company that now earns most of its revenue from payments and merchant solutions. The storefront may no longer be its advantage. The infrastructure is.
Lessons for Future Strategists
Shopify’s decision illustrates three enduring principles of business strategy.
First, follow where value migrates. Shopify’s profit center moved from software subscriptions to payments and logistics. The company evolved to capture that value.
Second, adapt to new discovery channels. From Google to social media to AI, every shift has changed how people shop. Shopify has evolved with each transition.
Third, own the rails, not the storefront. Interfaces and channels come and go, but the systems that process transactions endure. Companies that control those systems retain leverage across technology cycles.
Shopify did not lose its interface to ChatGPT. It simply recognized that the future of e-commerce is not about who owns the storefront, but about who powers the sale.
Jason Oh leads strategy and partnerships at Vanguard Canada, focused on building and scaling the firm’s direct-to-client presence. He brings deep experience in strategy consulting and corporate strategy, advising financial institutions on growth and delivery of strategic priorities.
Image: DALL-E
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