The platform offers retailers a suite of services, including payments, marketing, shipping and customer engagement tools.

[6] Shopify was founded in 2006 by Tobias Lütke and Scott Lake after launching Snowdevil, an online store for snowboarding equipment, in 2004.

[8][9][10] Lütke used the open source web application framework Ruby on Rails to build Snowdevil's online store and launched it after two months of development.

[27][28] Shopify went public on May 21, 2015, and in its debut on the New York Stock Exchange, started trading at $28, more than 60% higher than its US$17 offering price, with its IPO raising more than $131 million.

[37] In November 2016, Shopify partnered with Paystack which allowed Nigerian online retailers to accept payments from customers around the world.

[49] On March 22, 2019, Shopify and email marketing platform Mailchimp ended an integration agreement over disputes involving customer privacy and data collection.

[58] It was reported that Shopify's valuation would likely rise on the back of options it had in the company Affirm that was expecting to go public shortly.

[75][76] In May 2024, Shopify share prices declined by the most in the stock's history after the company reported a surprise loss in first quarter and warned that the sale of the logistics business would shrink revenue growth.

"[78] Shopify chief operating officer Kaz Nejatian also defended Trump's tariffs, writing, "Canada has turned a blind eye to being used as a training ground for foreign countries, gangs and terrorist groups.

[79] Shopify maintains Hydrogen, an open-source headless JavaScript stack created in 2021, for its client-facing storefront applications.

[80] Developers are able to deploy their Hydrogen applications to Oxygen, Shopify's managed hosting and content delivery network.

Hydrogen is built on top of the React library for client-side JavaScript, and Remix for its server-side routing capabilities.

[85] In 2021, Shopify announced that it would cut its commission on the first million dollars earned by developers in its app store to 0% following similar moves by Apple, Google, and Amazon.

[99][100] In September 2023, Shopify Rebellion announced it had purchased Team SoloMid's spot in the LCS, the main North American League of Legends esports competition.

[102] As part of a Series A round of funding, a total of $17.5 million was raised for Swyft, co-led by Inovia Capital and Forerunner Ventures with participation from Shopify.

[103] On May 5, 2022, Shopify announced their acquisition of Deliverr, a San Francisco, California-based ecommerce fulfilment startup, for US$2.1 billion in cash and stock.

[104][105] In May 2023, Shopify wound down its logistics business, selling off its prior related acquisitions; Deliverr and 6 River Systems to Flexport and Ocado Group respectively.

The service promises to handle shipping logistics for merchants and will compete with an established leader, Amazon FBA.

[113] On September 9, 2019, Shopify announced the acquisition of 6 River Systems, a Massachusetts-based company that makes warehouse robots.

[117] In October, the company acquired Remix, a full-stack TypeScript framework that provides "snappy page loads and instant transitions".

[121] In 2017, the #DeleteShopify hashtag campaign called for a boycott of Shopify for allowing Breitbart News to host a shop on its platform.

[122][123][124] Shopify's CEO, Tobias Lütke, responded to the criticism,[125] saying "refusing to do business with the site would constitute a violation of free speech".

[126][127] In October 2017, Citron Research founder, short-seller Andrew Left released a report which claimed Shopify was overstating the number of merchants using the e-commerce platform and described it as a "get-rich-quick" scheme in contravention of Federal Trade Commission regulations.

[131] In January 2020, Left announced in his annual letter to investors that Citron Research had exited the short position.

[132] In October 2018, The Logic found that several of Southern Poverty Law Center's identified hate groups were using Shopify’s platform for their online stores.

[135][136] In response to Media Matters, a Shopify spokesperson stated that Libs of TikTok was not in violation of the company's Acceptable Use Policy, which "clearly outlines the activities that are not permitted on [the] platform.

[138][135] In response to Jammi, CEO Tobias Lütke tweeted, "Shopify has a published acceptable use policy and a principled process to apply it.

[140][141] In February 2025, Shopify received criticism from The Simon Wiesenthal Center[142] and former Shopify executives[143] for hosting Kanye West's Yeezy shop after West took out a television advertisement during Super Bowl LIX promoting it while its only featured item was a white t-shirt with the Nazi swastika.

[134] 24 hours later, Shopify later to decide to take down West's website, not because it was selling a Nazi t-shirt but because risk of potential fraud.

Shopify claims that the data stolen included names, addresses and order details, but not "complete payment card numbers or other sensitive personal or financial information."