Shopify has confirmed that it has no plans to expand into the CRM market.
During the company’s latest earnings call, Harley Finkelstein, President of Shopify, was keen to emphasize that Shopify remains laser-focused on the commerce sector.
Finkelstein was responding to an analyst who sensed Shopify had an opportunity beyond commerce in replacing existing systems of records like the CRM.
Yet, Finkelstein’s comments suggest the vendor has no plans to play in another market led by Salesforce.
These comments come less than two weeks after Shopify decided to poke the proverbial CRM bear when it bragged about taking “hundreds” of commerce customers from the CRM leader.
In targeting large-scale businesses through a combination of lower prices and championing flexibility, Shopify has attempted to coax eCommerce business from some of its more established enterprise competitors.
However, it appears that the online shopping specialist is content with playing to its strengths and has no interest in taking the fight to Salesforce in the CRM arena anytime soon.
Going toe-to-toe with Salesforce at your own area of expertise is one thing, trying to take the behemoth on in CRM is an entirely different proposition.
Indeed, although Finkelstein did detail how the company has made a concerted effort in the last two years to make it as seamless as possible to integrate Shopify with pre-existing CRM and ERP systems, he made it clear that first and foremost, “We (Shopify) are a commerce company.
“We’re focused on our main quest. We don’t like the sort of side quest distractions.
So, our view is that make it really easy to bring the ERP system you prefer and integrate it to Shopify, but it’s not an area that we’re going to go into.
Full Steam Ahead for Enterprise
While the company might be staying out of the CRM game, it has no intention of slowing down its new enterprise strategy.
Having already lured away the likes of Toys R Us from Salesforce, Finkelstein confirmed that in Q3, the company also secured deals with Reebok and Lionsgate Entertainment, in what he called an “exceptional quarter” for “new enterprise-level brands coming to Shopify.”
The Shopify President outlined the company’s use of modular components as crucial to allowing it to compete so successfully against its more established competitors.
Not only do these components offer composability and flexibility, but they also enable new brands to integrate Shopify’s solutions more quickly.
In support of this assertion, Finkelstein pointed to a recent agreement with an outdoor gear company that went “from handshake to full implementation in less than three weeks.”
In discussing the overall performance of Shopify’s enterprise strategy throughout Q3, Finkelstein emphasized that it was “not a short-term play.
It is a massive opportunity to build for the long term, and we are positioning ourselves well to continue to capitalize on it today and in the future.
“With 16 enterprise launches in Q3 alone, we are truly just getting started with our push into the enterprise commerce market.”
Growth, Growth, and More Growth
Given Shopify’s performance in the last quarter, it comes as no surprise that the company is happy to continue focusing on the eCommerce sector.
The vendor achieved year-over-year revenue growth of 26 percent, taking its total to $2.16 billion.
There were also increases in gross profit (24.1 percent) and merchant solutions revenue (26.4 percent), with net income almost doubling from $173 million to $344 million.
The figures certainly seem to have impressed the stock market, with Shopify’s share price having jumped by almost 20 points (at the time of writing) since the earnings call.
This marks a 68 percent year-to-date increase.
