Shopify is unquestionably a poster child of the ongoing digital commerce revolution. The company prides itself as an “all-in-one commerce platform to start, run, and grow a business.” And they’ve made good on that premise by crafting several innovative tools powering entrepreneurs of all sizes.
Financial analysts say Shopify is the fourth largest eCommerce platform worldwide, with almost an 11% market share. Shopify is at the top of the digital commerce pyramid in the United States, owning 28% of the eCommerce platform market share. There are up to 4.3 million active eCommerce stores built with Shopify – and about 2.8 million of those brands are based in the USA.
Keep reading for extensive Shopify statistics you need to know in 2024. You'll get insights into a Shopify merchant’s average monthly revenue, traffic trends, profit margin, and so much more. These market insights will help you improve your business and make better decisions, whether you’re new to the Shopify community or an eCommerce veteran. We kindly ask that you credit Chargeflow and include a link to this article if you wish to use any data presented here.
Let’s dive right in.
What is the Average Order Value for Shopify Stores?
An Average Order Value (AOV) is an eCommerce metric used to calculate the average total value of each transaction made with a specific merchant during a defined time frame. Knowing your AOV is crucial because it helps you track the purchasing behavior of your customers. By analyzing AOV, you gain insights into how much customers are willing to spend on products or services, which helps you make informed decisions on pricing, promotions, and marketing strategies.
That said, available data from a survey of 2,261 Shopify stores indicates:
- The average order value for most Shopify stores is around $92,
- Making more than $209 in revenue for each customer you acquire puts you in the top 20% of Shopify stores,
- Exceeding $326 puts you in the top 10%.
On the flip side, having an average order value of less than $53 would put you in the bottom 20% of Shopify stores, while an AOV of less than $42 puts your store among the worst performers.
What is the Average Monthly Revenue for a Shopify Store?
The average revenue of a Shopify store varies considerably depending on indices like the business vertical, marketing strategies, pricing, etc. While it is challenging to extrapolate the exact average monthly revenue for Shopify stores, we know that certain stores generate a few hundred dollars monthly, and others achieve revenues ranging from thousands to millions of dollars.
For instance, a survey done by Shopify in 2020 says on average, Shopify stores generated a monthly revenue of $1,579, with the top 10% of stores achieving an average monthly income of $10,866. Some Shopify dropshippers make as much as $800,000 monthly.
I must also underscore that revenue and profit are not the same. Revenue includes various operating expenses like advertising, website maintenance, and product costs. Hence, a merchant could be making positive revenue, but their profit will be in the negative.
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What is a Good Profit Margin for a Shopify Store?
Industry records suggest the optimal profit margin for a Shopify eCommerce store typically hovers around 40%. This number depends on factors like the nature of your business, what you're selling, and the level of competition. Smaller eCommerce establishments generally maintain an average gross margin of 30%, while larger enterprises tend to operate with a 37% gross margin.
Generally speaking, a net profit margin of 10% is considered average, 20% is considered high, and 5% is considered low.
Overlooking or neglecting to track certain costs in your Shopify store can significantly impact profitability. Crucial expenses to track include returns and refunds, payment processing fees, third-party app fees, outsourcing costs, and professional services.
For an accurate representation of your business growth, track pivotal metrics influencing profitability, such as:
- The Conversion Rate, measuring the adeptness of converting leads into customers;
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), evaluating the efficacy of acquiring new customers;
- Average Order Value (AOV), assessing marketing campaign effectiveness and predicting income; and
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), providing insights into long-term financial health and customer loyalty.
According to the NYU Stern School of Business, a favorable gross margin for online retail typically falls around 45.25%.
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How Many Apps are in the Shopify App Store?
As of the time of this report, there are over 10,000 publicly available apps across the Shopify App Store. These are offered by Shopify and 36,792 Shopify partners. Shopify made only 34 of the 10,000 apps in their store. Those 34 apps are free and supported by the platform. Third-party developers often charge a fee for their apps and support them independently.
An average Shopify merchant will use at least six unique apps to run their business. Over 80% of Shopify retailers use third-party apps, and Shopify says its users have installed more than 25.8 million apps.
In terms of the profitability of building Shopify apps, Shopify said its app developer partners earned $233 million in 2020 alone. To further spur their earning potential, the eCommerce giant dropped its commissions on app developer revenue to 0%, down from 20%, for developers who make less than $1 million annually on its platform. They aim to reset that benchmark yearly to help developers drive their earnings further.
Industry records suggest that Shopify App developers earn an average annual revenue of $93,000, with the top 25% making around $167,000 yearly. Shopify App partners and developers have accumulated more than $1.5 billion in earnings since the launch of the Shopify App Store.
What are the Most Installed Shopify Apps?
Facebook & Instagram channel app is the most installed app on Shopify. Below are ten of the most installed apps on the Shopify App Store:
A closer inspection of the Shopify App Store equally reveals that apps in specific verticals perform better than others. The most in-demand Shopify app verticals are:
- Marketing and conversion apps – 2,376 installations.
- Store management apps – 2,064 installations.
- Store design apps – 1,886 installations.
- Orders and shipping apps – 1,745 installations.
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How Many Employees Does Shopify Have?
Since its founding by Tobias Lütke and Scott Lake in 2006, Shopify grew to over 11,600 employees in 2023, before laying off around 20% of the workforce in May 2023. The company now has about 9,200 workers.
Shopify's "Digital by Design'' company philosophy allows employees to work remotely and live abroad for up to 90 days. The Shopify marketplace has more than 780 experts who help vendors set up or refine their stores. The eCommerce behemoth says they’re constantly hiring engineering, UX/UI, and data talents.
How Many Active Stores Are Currently Using Shopify?
Over 48,991 live websites are using Shopify Plus around the world. An additional 10,523 sites have used Shopify Plus historically.
Data analysis company "BuiltWith" also indicates that there are 4,637,710 active websites currently powered by Shopify in 175 distinct countries. What's more? Shopify POS powers over 100,000 merchants. Merchants have spent over $100 million dollars in the App Store.
Regarding the cost, Shopify Plus begins at $2,000 per month for an annual subscription. The applicable fee will be greater than $2,000 or a percentage based on your store's transactions, with rates set at 0.25% for consumer transactions and 0.18% for business-to-business transactions.
If you use Shopify Payments as your payment processor, they'll add a nominal transaction fee on each transaction. This fee covers the cost of maintaining integrations with an external payment provider.
Overview of Shopify Revenue Growth to Date
Shopify posted stellar earnings for Q4 2023. Total revenue increased by 24% to reach $2.14 billion, beating industry expectations by 3.36%. Compared to previous quarters, that represents a 30% revenue growth when adjusting for the sale of their logistics businesses. The company also had positive free cash flow for the fifth consecutive quarter, amounting to $446 million, a 21% share of total revenue.
- Shopify subscription solutions revenue spiked by 31.3% YoY to $525 million.
- Merchant Solutions revenue rose by 21.3% year over year to $1.62 billion. This growth was predominantly fueled by the expansion of Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), which improved 23% YoY to $75.1 billion and the increased adoption of Shopify Payments (used by 1.87 million merchants).
- As of December 31, 2023, Shopify's Monthly Recurring Revenues (MRR) reached $149 million, marking a 35% increase from the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
- Shopify Plus revenues accounted for $46 million, comprising 31% of MRR, slightly lower than the 33% share in the year-ago quarter.
- The Gross Payments Volume increased to $45.1 billion, representing 60% of the Gross Merchandise Volume processed in the fourth quarter, compared to $34.2 billion (56% of GMV) in the same quarter of the previous year.
Notable Shopify Platform Growth Stats:
- The average conversion rate for Shopify stores is 1.4%, according to an extensive survey by Shopify analytics app LittleData.
- If your conversion rate exceeds 3.3%, you are among the top 20% of all Shopify stores. And a conversion rate below 0.5% puts you among the worst performing stores. The average eCommerce conversion rates are around 2.5% to 3%.
- About 48,991 live websites currently run Shopify Plus. Note that merchants can add up to 1,000 total domains and subdomains to their store. Estimates suggest that up to 19,084 distinct merchants currently run Shopify Plus.
- Shopify's Daily Active Users (DAU)reached 2.1 million in 2021. The average visitor spends over 3 minutes on Shopify and visits more than three stores.
- Shopify says its customers include major brands like Nestle, Pepsi, Unilever, Redbull, and Budweiser; innovative brands like Gymshark, Tesla, and Netflix; and celebrities like Adele, Drake, David Beckham, Kanye West, Justin Bieber, and Zendaya.
- Shopify is the fourth leading eCommerce platform worldwide as of January 2024, with a market share of 11%. WooCommerce is at the top of the food chain with ~ 39% market share, Squarespace and Woo Themes trail closely with global market share of ~15% and 14% respectively, according to Statista.
- Of all ~4.8 million active Shopify stores around the world, 2,907,545 or ~61% of Shopify stores are based in the US. 203,835 or ~22% of Shopify websites are hosted in the UK. Australia, Brazil, Germany, and Canada host 151,151, 147,466, 121,365, and 109,494 Shopify stores, respectively.
- 28% of hosted eCommerce sites in the United States are built with Shopify, a 5% point lead over WooCommerce, which stands at 23%. The number of Shopify Stores in the world grew by 41% YoY in the Third Quarter of 2023.
- Regarding Gross Merchandise Volume, industry records suggest that Shopify stores command an 8.6% market share of total retail eCommerce sales across the US. This surpasses the market shares of Walmart (5.8%) and eBay (4.9%). Shopify’s GMV in the United States is expected to reach more than $145 billion this year 2024. As a point of reference, the Shopify Gross Merchandise Volume in 2020 amounted to just $62.88 billion.
Shopify Store Traffic Sources:
- 25% of Shopify Stores’ traffic comes from Mobile devices, hence mobile optimization is essential on Shopify.
- The typical conversion rate for mobile devices stands at 1.2%. However, the top 10% and 20% of Shopify stores boast higher mobile conversion rates, with figures of 2.7% and 3.9%, respectively.
- Email marketing produces the highest conversion rate for Shopify stores at 4.29%. Even though the eCommerce industry average email conversion rate is between 8% to 9%, Shopify says anything above 2% is considered good.
- Using 3D commerce results in a 94% increase in conversions for the average Shopify merchant.
- Having a live chat improves the average order value on Shopify stores by 10-15%. Additionally, these proactive chats can increase a store's overall revenue by 13%.
- Most Shopify stores get little less benefit from paid advertising, as estimates suggest paid ads are approximately 15 to 20% less impactful than other forms of marketing like content marketing.
Shopify’s Valuation, Share Structure & Global Economic Impact:
- Shopify is a publicly traded company, after filing for an IPO in April 2015. As at the time of writing, Shopify Inc. (NYSE:SHOP) has a market capitalization of $104.731 billion. The company’s shares gained 72.81% of their value over the last 52 weeks.
- On Shopify stock ownership, about 68% of Shopify shareholders are institutional investors, such as Baillie Gifford and Company (5.20%) and Morgan Stanley (4.94%). In total, 1,519 distinct institutions hold Shopify shares, while company insiders hold 0.2% of the shares. The founder and CEO of Shopify, Tobias Lütke, presently owns about 6% of the company (with a 40% voting right from a non-transferable ‘founder share’).
- Shopify has amassed over $812 billion in global economic activity since inception. The company says their ~1.75 million merchants have created over 3.6 million jobs and generated more than $307 billion in global economic impact.
- In an effort to further refine the platform and expand market standing, Shopify has made some strategic acquisitions in the past few years. These acquisitions include the dropshipping company Oberlo, UX agency Jet Cooper, eCommerce recruitment firm Dovetale, and more recently, a $2.1 billion purchase of logistics company Deliverr.
Shopify Black Friday and Cyber Monday Statistics
Black Friday and Cyber Monday numbers are always mind-boggling. During the Black Friday-Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend of 2023, Shopify merchants achieved a milestone with sales totaling $9.3 billion; a remarkable 24% increase compared to 2022.
Shopify says Black Friday shopping spiked at 12:01 p.m. EST when total merchant sales reached a record-high $4.2 million per minute!
More BFCM numbers from Shopify:
- Over 61 million consumers globally made purchases from Shopify merchants during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend, with cross-border transactions accounting for 15% of all Shopify BFCM sales.
- A whooping 17,500 entrepreneurs made their inaugural Shopify sales during BFCM. And 55,000 merchants had their best Shopify sales day ever during that period.
- The leading countries in terms of sales were the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, and Germany, with the top selling cities being Los Angeles, New York, and London.
What are the Best Shopify Analytics Apps?
Building a business and expanding your customer base significantly relies on having actionable insights. With that, you can add value to your customers at every step of the way. You can make your deliverables faster, manage customer disputes like the Wizard of Oz, and get better value for money.
Below are 7 Shopify analytics apps that can help you achieve that objective:
- Chargeflow – for chargeback analytics and automated dispute recovery.
- Triple Whale Analytics – For managing and automating business analytics, attribution, merchandising, forecasting and more.
- Better Reports – For instant access to your data so you can make smarter decisions.
- TrueProfit – Net profit analytics for Shopify made easy.
- BeProfit – Empowering eCommerce brands to optimize for profit first by understanding what impacts their bottom line.
- Polar Analytics – A 1-click set-up business intelligence platform for Shopify brands; trusted by 1,700+ brands like Polène, Aybl, Albion Fit.
- StoreView by optymyze – See everything that takes place in your store right in front of your eyes, as it happens.
What are the Top Industries on Shopify Plus?
- As of June 2023, the biggest industry using Shopify services for eCommerce is apparel and fashion retailers. The platform boasted the creation of over 500,000 online apparel stores.
- Following closely, the home and garden category secured the second spot in popularity, hosting approximately 220,000 stores on Shopify's eCommerce platforms.
That’s all for my list for this installment of 2024 Shopify stats you should know. With over 1.75 million merchants using Shopify in ~175 different countries and counting, the future looks bright for this company.
As the team continues to work on democratizing eCommerce and expanding their platform, we'll be here to share the journey with you! Feel free to share this article to help others find it. And check out our other copies as well!
This research provides general and factual information as of the time of writing. Chargeflow assumes no liability for the information given being complete or correct. Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date data than referenced in the text.
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