Shopify Statistics (How Many Websites Use Shopify?)

Shopify is one of the most popular ecommerce platforms on the market and powers more stores than any other ecommerce solution.

In this post, we’ll be looking at some super interesting Shopify statistics that tell us more about this powerful, cloud-based SaaS platform and the merchants who use it.

We’ll be revealing the number of websites and merchants that use Shopify and taking a deep dive into all the most important data about the platform’s market share, revenue, apps, themes, and more.

Ready? Let’s get started!

How many websites use Shopify?

There are currently over 3.9 million live websites that use Shopify. Almost two-thirds of these website domains (65%) are registered in the US, and the vast majority are registered in countries in North America and Europe.

Number of Shopify websites by country

US – 2.6m

UK – 170k

Australia – 122k

Canada – 99k

Germany – 94k

Brazil – 76k

France – 54k

India – 39k

Netherlands – 36k

Italy – 32k

Sources: BuiltWith

Shopify market share

Shopify’s CMS market share is 6.1%, making it the second most popular CMS after WordPress. And it’s ecommerce market share is 10% to 22%, depending on which data source you look at.

What percentage of websites are built on Shopify?

4.1% of all websites on the internet are built on Shopify, according to data from W3Tech. This climbs to 6.1% if we only count websites that have content management systems that W3Tech monitors. 

This makes Shopify the second most used content management system. However, it’s still a long way behind WordPress, which dominates the market with over 43% of the market share. 

This is likely due to the fact that Shopify is exclusively designed for ecommerce stores, whereas WordPress is a general-purpose CMS that powers all types of websites.

What percentage of ecommerce stores use Shopify?

Shopify’s ecommerce market share varies depending on which source you look at. 

According to BuiltWith, 22% of ecommerce stores use Shopify, making it the #1 most popular ecommerce solution. That’s slightly more than the market share of both WooCommerce and Wix stores; each of which powers around 20% of ecommerce stores.

However, Datanyze puts Shopify’s ecommerce market share substantially lower. According to their data set, Shopify is used on around 692k domains, giving it a 10.1% market share. This puts it behind both WooCommerce and Squarespace.

Of the two, BuiltWith’s figures are likely the most accurate as they’re based on a larger data set.

Sources: BuiltWith, W3Techs, Datanyze

How many Shopify merchants are there?

There were 2.06 million Shopify merchants at the end of 2021. Note that this is substantially lower than the total number of Shopify stores on the internet, which suggests many Shopify merchants have multiple stores.

Number of Shopify merchants by region

Shopify merchants are distributed across 175 different countries, but over half are from North America (NA). Merchants in NA also bring in over two-thirds of Shopify revenues.

The graph below shows a breakdown of merchants and revenues by region:

Region
Merchants (% of total)
Revenues (% of total)
North America (US and Canada)
55%
71%
EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa)
25%
17%
APAC (Asia Pacific, Australia, and China)
15%
10%
Latin America (Mexico and South America)
5%
1%

What is the most popular Shopify plan?

The vast majority of Shopify merchants are on subscription plans that cost <$50/month (i.e. Basic or Shopify plans)

Interestingly, only 14,000 merchants are subscribed to Shopify Plus plans—the highest-tier plan. This is only a tiny fraction of the overall Shopify user base. And yet, Shopify Plus merchants drive the majority of Shopify’s total GMV (general merchandise value).

Source: Shopify Annual Report 2021, Shopify Year In Review 2021

Shopify financial statistics

Next, let’s take a look at some financial statistics per Shopify’s latest annual reports and quarterly earnings press releases.

Shopify income

Shopify generated a net income of over 2.9 billion in 2021. This was one of its best years to date. 

Comparatively, net income in 2020 was just 319.5 million. And for the three years prior, Shopify reported a net loss. These losses were largely a result of Shopify’s hefty investments in growing the business.

Shopify net income by year:

• 2021: 2.9 billion
• 2020: 0.32 billion
• 2019: -0.12 billion
• 2018: -0.065 billion
• 2017: -0.040 billion

Shopify profit

Shopify reported gross profits of 2.48 billion in 2021. This is almost a billion dollars more than the year before when annual gross profits were just 1.5 billion.

And it looks like Shopify is on track to have an even better year this year. By the end of the third quarter of 2022, Shopify had earned 1.96b in gross profit. That’s a significant year-over-year increase—by the end of Q3 2021, gross profits were just 1.79b.

Shopify revenue

Shopify reported gross revenues of over 4.6 billion in 2021. That’s up by 57.4% compared to the year before when it was just 2.9 billion.

But again, it looks like 2022 is going to be an even better year for Shopify with the highest revenues yet. By the end of Q3 2022, Shopify had earned 3.86b in revenue, compared to just 3.23b by the same time in 2021.

Shopify revenues by location

The vast majority of revenue Shopify generated in 2021 came from customers in North America (71%), with the US alone responsible for 64.5% of revenue. In comparison, Latin America contributed just 1.2% to Shopify’s annual revenue.

Region
Revenue (USD)
Revenue (% of total)
US
2.96 billion
64.5%
Canada
317 million
6.9%
EMEA
799 million
17.3%
APAC
467 million
10.1%
Latin America
55 million
1.2%

Where does Shopify’s revenue come from?

The vast majority of Shopify’s revenue comes from its merchant solutions:

• In 2021, Shopify earned 1.34 billion (29.1% of its total annual revenue) from its subscription solutions…
• …and 3.27 billion (70.9% of its total annual revenue) from its merchant solutions

Subscription solutions refer to revenue Shopify makes from selling recurring subscription plans to its merchants (i.e. Basic, Shopify, and Shopify Plus).

But while these plans may seem like Shopify’s main service offering, they’re only responsible for less than a third of Shopify’s revenue.

Merchant solutions refer to revenue generated through other sources. The bulk of merchant solution revenues comes from payment processing fees and currency conversion fees on merchant sales processed through Shopify Payments—Shopify’s in-house payment gateway. 

This shows just how important Shopify Payments is to the platform’s business model. It also explains why Shopify—unlike some competitor ecommerce platforms—charges additional transaction fees when merchants choose to use other third-party payment gateways instead of Shopify Payments.

Aside from Shopify Payments fees, merchant solutions also include revenue derived from things like referral fees, advertising revenue, Shopify Email, etc.

It’s interesting to note that Shopify’s merchant solution revenues are tightly correlated with GMV (the total number of sales made by Shopify merchants). The more Shopify merchants make, the more Shopify makes in fees. This provides a strong incentive for Shopify to invest in its merchants’ success.

Shopify Payments usage

The Shopify Payments penetration rate was 48.9% in 2021.

This means that over half of all Shopify merchants use the in-house payment gateway. However, this likely underrepresents Shopify Payments’ true adoption rate as it’s not yet available in all the countries where Shopify is used.

In regions where Shopify Payments is available, over four-fifths of merchants use it:

Usage of Shopify Payments by region:

• Canada – 92%
• US – 88%
• Other countries where it’s available – 84%

Almost $86 billion in GMV was processed using Shopify Payments in 2021.

Sources: Shopify Annual Report 2021, Q3 Earnings Press Release

Shopify sales statistics

Shopify merchants collectively made over $175.4 billion in 2021 alone. And in total, there have been over $500 billion worth of sales processed through the Shopify platform since its launch.

Shopify GMV (growth merchandise volume)

Shopify’s GMV (gross merchandise volume) has grown year over year. It increased by 46.7% in 2021 alone, growing from 119.6 billion to 175.4 billion. This rapid growth was no doubt accelerated by the shift to ecommerce brought around by the global COVID pandemic.

In case you didn’t know, GMV is a figure that tells you the value of merchandise sold over time. Or in other words, the total sales revenue generated by all the stores that use Shopify.

Shopify GMV by year:

• 2021 – 175.4 billion
• 2020 – 119.6 billion
• 2019 – 61.1 billion
• 2018 – 41.1 billion
• 2017 – 26.3 billion
• 2016 – 15.4 billion
• 2015 – 7.7 billion
• 2014 – 3.8 billion
• 2013 – 1.6 billion
• 2012 – 0.7 billion

How many people buy from Shopify merchants?

Over 597 million people bought from Shopify merchants this year. That’s up from 457 million shoppers in 2021 (+31% YOY), and from 300 million shoppers in 2020 (+52% YOY). To put that into perspective, 597 million people is almost double the population of the United States.

How many Shopify orders are placed each month?

Shopify processed 152.6 million orders per month on average in 2021. And interestingly, 66% of these orders come from mobile devices, which shows the importance of making sure your store and product pages are mobile-responsive.

What month do most Shopify sales take place in?

Data shows that Shopify stores experience more sales in November than any other month. This is likely due to the fact that November is the month of large sales events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It’s also the month in which many consumers start buying gifts ahead of the holiday season.

On the other end of the spectrum, Shopify stores experience the least sales in February than any other month. This is likely due to the fact that February immediately follows two of the most popular shopping months: December and January.

How much traffic do Shopify stores get?

Shopify stores averaged 7.1 billion monthly browsing sessions in 2021 (mostly from mobile). That’s almost equal to the global population (7.9 billion) and highlights just how big the online shopping market is.

Sources: Shopify Annual Report 2021, Shopify News, Shopify Year In Review 2021

What is the best product to sell on Shopify?

According to an analysis of 2.8 million products on Shopify shops, clothing is the most popular product category sold through Shopify. Over 75 thousand Shopify stores in the sample analyzed sell clothing products. This was more than double the next most popular product category, Home & Garden.

However, while this statistic shows that clothing is the best-selling product category, it doesn’t mean it’s the best choice for your store. You might be better off choosing a less-popular, niche product category with less competition.

Top 10 best-selling product categories on Shopify

Clothing – 75.5k

Home & Garden – 33.8k

Jewelry & Watchers – 27.6k

Health & Beauty – 24.7k

Fashion Accessories – 22.9k

Food & Beverages – 16.3k

Art – 11.6k

Sporting Goods – 7.7k

Electronics – 6.9k

 Car & Truck Parts – 6.2k

(Other – 66k)

Source: Statista1

Shopify benchmarks

Next, let’s look at some Shopify statistics that reveal useful benchmarks that you can measure your own store’s metrics and KPIs up against.

What’s the average Shopify order value?

The average online order in Shopify stores is $75. However, there’s significant variation from order to order. If you’re selling high-ticket products, your order value will likely be much higher, whereas if you’re selling low-cost products like phone cases, it may be much lower.

What’s the average Shopify store conversion rate?

The average Shopify conversion rate is 1.4%, according to Littledata’s survey of 3,223 Shopify stores (the best data to date). This is slightly higher than the average conversion rate across all ecommerce stores, which is 1.3%, and a good benchmark to aim for.

But again, there’s significant variation between stores. The top 20% of Shopify stores boast conversion rates of over 3.2%, and the top 10% reach 4.7%+. Meanwhile, the bottom 20% of Shopify stores have conversion rates of 0.4% or less.

How often do people buy from Shopify stores?

On average, shoppers buy from the same store 3.8 times. And over half of all Shopify merchants see buyers make purchases from their store 2 or more times.

In 2021, over 62 million online shoppers bought from the same Shopify store twice. This is 14% of all shoppers.

Source: Shopify News, LittleData

Shopify app statistics

How many Shopify apps are there?

There are currently over 8,000+ apps in the App Store, with more added every month. This huge repository of third-party add-ons is part of the reason Shopify is so popular—it’s almost infinitely extensible and flexible.

What’s the most popular Shopify app?

Product Reviews is the most popular Shopify app, according to an analysis by Store Leads. It’s installed on at least 405,000 Shopify stores. The second most popular app is Shopify inbox, with over 262,000 installations.

Top 10 most used Shopify apps (by installations):

Product Reviews – 405k

Shopify Inbox – 262k

Klaviyo – 248k 

Geolocation – 219k 

Customer Privacy – 193k

Mailchimp – 161k

Judge.me – 144k

Loox – 138k

DSers – 127k

Printful – 125k

Sources: Shopify News, Store Leads

Shopify theme statistics

How many Shopify themes are there?

There are 102 themes in the Shopify Theme Store at the time of writing, and many more on third-party websites. For example, there are 1,500 Shopify themes and templates listed on Theme Forest. 

Of the 102 native Shopify themes, only 9 are free. The other 92 are paid themes that cost anywhere from $200 to $350 each.

What’s the most popular Shopify theme?

The most popular theme in Shopify’s free collection is Dawn, and the most popular paid theme is Impulse. The best-selling Shopify theme on Theme Forest is Ella, with 28.3k sales to date.

Top 10 most popular Shopify themes (in the Shopify Theme Store):

Dawn

Craft

Refresh

Sense

Ride

Studio

Taste

Crave

Colorblock

Impulse

Source: Shopify Theme Store, Theme Forest

When was Shopify founded?

Shopify was in 2006, making it one of the oldest ecommerce solutions. 2022 marked Shopify’s 16th birthday.

Who founded Shopify?

Shopify was founded by Tobias Lutke and Scott Lake

Lutke was a computer programmer who decided to use the open-source framework Ruby on Rails to build his own ecommerce store (Snowdevil) to sell snowboarding equipment, after deciding he was dissatisfied with existing e-commerce products. 

Later, Lutke and Lake decided to launch the platform as Shopify. They then created an open-source template language called Liquid.

Source: Shopify News, Shopify Annual Report 2021, Wikipedia

General Shopify facts & statistics

Before we wrap up, let’s look at a few more interesting facts and stats about Shopify.

How many employees does Shopify have?

Shopify has over 10,000 employees in 2022. This is up from 7k at the end of 2021

How many countries is Shopify available in?

Shopify is available in 175 of the 195 countries on earth. However, certain features are only available in select countries. For example, Shopify Payments is only supported in 22 of the 175 countries that Shopify is available in.

Misc. interesting Shopify statistics

• 307b in global economic activity was enabled by Shopify in 2021
• The Shopify platform can handle at least 540,000 per second, and 27,000 orders per minute. Uses a technology called ‘containerization’ to do this.
• Median response time is sub-1000 milliseconds for Shopify stores in 2021
• 40,000 of the partners in Shopify’s partner ecosystem (app developers, theme designers, marketers, affiliates, etc) referred merchants to Shopify in 2021
• 30% of Shopify merchants say marketing is one of their biggest challenges, making this the #1 challenge Shopify store owners face. Building a brand is the second biggest challenge at 22%
• 100k+ retailers used Shopify POS to sell in-person in 2019
• According to a global analysis of Shopify stores in 2021, around 7.8% of Shopify stores use third-party dropshipping services like Oberlo. That means the vast majority are not dropshipping stores.

Source: Shopify News, Shopify Annual Report 2021, Shopify Payments, Shopify Year In Review 2021, Statista2

Final thoughts

That concludes our roundup of Shopify statistics. We hope you learned something useful.

Want to share these statistics or use them in your own content? Don’t forget to drop a link to this post!

And while you’re here, if you found these statistics useful, you might want to check out some of our other stats roundups:

• To learn how Shopify stacks up against one of its biggest competitors, check out these WordPress statistics.
• And to brush up on the state of the web design industry in general, take a look at our roundup of the latest web design statistics.

Enjoy!