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Wednesday, April 29, 2026

Shopify For Everyone!

 

Shopify is good. It is not universal. What follows is for everyone the pitch keeps missing.

Shopify is perfect for you

You can't go to a commerce event in 2026 and avoid the pitch. No, not a Commerce event. The other one. The category, not the company. Stay with me. You can't open LinkedIn. You can't watch a Shopify demo without it landing in the first three slides.

Shopify is perfect for you.

It doesn't matter who "you" are. B2B distributor with company hierarchies and negotiated pricing? Shopify. European DTC brand running B2C and wholesale on the same SKUs? Shopify. Headless team trying to build the agent-native commerce stack? Shopify Hydrogen. Bootstrapped developer with $40 a month to spend? Shopify. A creator selling services, products, and bookings out of one cart? Shopify. Heineken? Apparently not. They picked Medusa.

The pitch never adjusts to the merchant. It adjusts to whoever is sponsoring the lunch.

So let's adjust it.

The pitch is bigger than Shopify

I went looking for a Shopify exec saying "Shopify is for everyone." I didn't find one. Shopify itself is more careful than the pitch its industry creates. Shopify Plus marketing segments by use case (B2B, omnichannel, DTC). Tobi Lütke at Editions 2025 talked about helping the merchants on Shopify do well, not about being right for every merchant on the planet.

The universal pitch comes from somewhere else. It comes from agency partners with quotas. It comes from SEO posts like "Why Shopify Will Dominate eCommerce Growth in 2026," positioning Shopify as the "go-to choice for both global enterprise brands and direct-to-consumer creators" in one breath (Ayatas Infotech, 2026). It comes from posts like "The Future of Shopify: How the Platform Will Transform Online Selling in 2026," framing Shopify as a "Complete Business Operating System" for any merchant alive (Fourfoldtech, 2026).

That's the pitch I'm taking apart. Not Shopify the platform. The industry-default reflex that recommends Shopify before anyone has asked who the merchant is.

The Six Platforms Shopify Forgot To Mention

Shopify is real. $378.4 billion in GMV across 5.6 million active stores (DigitalApplied 2026). Excellent at what it was built for. Nothing here is a hit piece.

But "everyone" is doing a lot of work in the universal pitch.

Stop asking "is Shopify good?" Start asking: who is this merchant, and what does the platform cost them in flexibility, ownership, and fit?

I asked that question across six platforms. Each one wins for a different merchant. Each one has been told Shopify is perfect for them. Each one has a better answer.

I write this for the merchant in the audience who got told Shopify is perfect for them at NRF, ShopTalk, eTail, or some podcast last week and hasn't asked the question since. The merchant deserves a real comparison. The merchant deserves to know there are six other names in this conversation. The platforms deserve to be in it.

I have written about my own paradox before. I built a Shopify app even after years of explaining the platform's limitations, because that is where the customers are (My Shopify Paradox, ACG, July 2025). The paradox is real. The pitch is the problem.

Six because of time and space. The list could go longer (commercetools, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Spryker, Saleor, Vendure, OroCommerce, PrestaShop, Centra). Each has its merchant. These six are where to start.

Let's start with the one that just changed its name.

1. Commerce (formerly BigCommerce)

The merchant: SaaS without the walled garden, with agentic commerce baked in.

BigCommerce has a great product. Let me say that twice. BigCommerce has a great product. The platform ships an enterprise-grade SaaS that you can extend with Catalyst, Makeswift for visual editing, and Feedonomics for product feeds across Google, Meta, TikTok, and Amazon. Mountain Warehouse just launched a composable storefront on Catalyst with Vercel, Contentful, and Algolia (Commerce press, April 2026). That's a real merchant doing real composable work without leaving the platform.

Catalyst sidesteps a problem I wrote about before (The Headless Trap, ACG, August 2025). The framework is opinionated. The platform is opinionated. The merchant doesn't have to assemble both from scratch.

The rebrand is the problem. In July 2025, BigCommerce announced it was becoming "Commerce" (Wikipedia). The ticker changed from BIGC to CMRC around August 1, 2025. Three product lines (BigCommerce, Feedonomics, Makeswift) now sit under one parent brand. CEO Travis Hess called it "a clear declaration" focused on "agentic commerce" (EcommerceNews EU, 2025). The agentic commerce read is right. The naming is muddled. Calling the company "Commerce" and the product "BigCommerce" might work in the long run. Maybe.

Let's call BigCommerce BigCommerce.

The product earned the rebrand. The rebrand hasn't earned the product yet.

Pro: Open SaaS with real composable hosting and a feed manager (Feedonomics) that the rest of the category copies. Con: The strategic message got diluted in the rename, and merchants are still figuring out what to call what. Real merchant: Mountain Warehouse on Catalyst (April 2026). Agentic readiness: Commerce Companion AI in admin, Feedonomics with Google Cloud Gemini for product enrichment, agent-enabled checkout work in the roadmap. Best for: Mid-market merchants who want SaaS stability and composable flexibility without writing a headless storefront from scratch. Catalyst gives them the framework. Makeswift gives them visual editing on top, so non-developers can ship storefront changes. Feedonomics handles cross-channel feeds across Google, Meta, TikTok, and Amazon. They run multi-channel selling, they want headless without a full engineering team, and they are done with Shopify Plus telling them which composable extensions are allowed.

2. Shopware

The merchant: complex B2B. Companies with hierarchies, sales reps, custom catalogs per customer, quoted pricing, and approval workflows. Shopware wins 54% of the deals it competes for in this category (per Shopware). DTC merchants run on it too, but B2B is the headline.

The time is now for Shopware. You own your data. You don't rent it back from a SaaS company that decides one day to change your fees, your checkout, or your app permissions. You make any change you want, any customization you need, because the license lets you. You get support from a team that picks up the phone.

Then there is the pricing. Shopify charges by volume. Transaction fees on every sale. App store fees that compound. Plus tiers that scale with revenue. The bigger the merchant, the bigger the bill. Shopware caps the platform cost through licensing. The busier the merchant, the better the unit economics. That is not a small thing for a brand doing $20M, $50M, or $200M GMV. When the merchant grows, the merchant keeps the upside.

Then there's the funding story. PayPal first invested in Shopware in February 2022 as part of a $100 million round with Carlyle Group (Shopware press release, 2022). In October 2025, PayPal increased its stake from 11% to roughly 41% by buying Carlyle's shares (EcommerceNews EU, 2025). PayPal is now Shopware's largest external shareholder. That isn't a partnership announcement. That's a payments company putting real ownership behind a platform built for merchants who want B2B, DTC, and ownership in one stack.

The US momentum is the new story. Shopware North America reported 300% year-over-year growth in the first half of 2025 (Shopware press, 2025). Named US client wins included UPPAbaby, Good360, Eagle Crusher, BlueAlly, Noble, and Dynamic Team Sports. New US partnerships landed with Klaviyo, BlueSnap, PayTrace, Webscale, and Liquid Web. Shopware hosted Shoptoberfest in NYC in September 2025 to celebrate the company's 25th anniversary on US soil (PR Newswire, 2025-09-16). Store Leads data showed Shopware net-gained 2,995 merchants from competitive platforms over the prior 90 days (Store Leads, Q1 2026).

Shopware is closing deals and making waves in the US market. The agencies told you Shopify Plus could do B2B. Shopify Plus does company logins. Shopware does company hierarchies, native quoting, sales rep tools, and custom catalogs per customer. That's B2B. The other thing is a feature flag.

Pro: Native B2B depth (54% win rate per Shopware), licensing model that doesn't tax growth, US momentum backed by 41% PayPal ownership. Con: The brand is still earning US recognition, which means agencies still default to Shopify Plus on first reference. Real merchant: Eagle Crusher (heavy equipment B2B) and UPPAbaby (premium DTC), both US. Agentic readiness: Shopware AI Copilot for product data, content, and customer service. Best for: Mid-market and enterprise merchants running complex B2B. Company hierarchies, sales rep accounts, custom catalogs per customer, quoted pricing, approval workflows. Shopware closes 54% of the deals it competes for in this category (per Shopware). DTC merchants run on it too, but B2B is the headline. They want ownership over rent, customization their lawyer can approve, a team that picks up the phone, and a pricing model that doesn't punish them for growing. Increasingly US-based: 300% YoY North American growth, named wins like Eagle Crusher and UPPAbaby.

3. Wix

The merchant: the creator whose storefront IS the brand presence.

Wix is the new up-and-comer, and the AI tools they are adding are fantastic. You get world-class content and commerce in one easy-to-use package.

We underestimate Wix because it sells to people we don't talk to at conferences. The creator running services, products, and bookings doesn't need Plus, doesn't want headless, and has been told for a decade that Shopify is the answer to a question they never asked. Wix shipped one of the most credible AI site builders in the category. The Wix AI Site Generator writes product descriptions, generates images, designs layouts, fills in SEO and meta tags, and runs your ad copy (EasyApps comparison, 2026). Inside the same dashboard. Without an app store tax.

The thing Wix gets right is the merchant nobody else builds for: the brand whose content and commerce are the same business. Bookings, services, products, blog, email, all in one cart, all in one editor. Shopify will sell you Plus to bolt that together. Wix ships it as the default. 1,000 product variants per item versus Shopify's 100. 6+ option sets versus Shopify's 3. 900-plus templates with full drag-and-drop (EasyApps 2026). Built-in Semrush integration and ad management without paying for a higher tier.

For the merchant whose audience IS the storefront, that isn't a feature gap. That's a category.

I made this case before (Don't Underestimate Wix Commerce, ACG, October 2025). The case has only gotten stronger.

Pro: Native bookings, services, and products in one cart with AI tooling baked into the editor. Con: Less credible the higher you go in catalog complexity and headless ambition. Real merchant: Wix's strength is in the long tail of creator and service brands rather than headline DTC names, which is itself part of the story. Agentic readiness: Wix AI Site Generator handles content, layout, SEO, and ad creative end-to-end. Best for: Creators, service-led brands, and small businesses where the storefront IS the brand presence. Yoga studios. Photographers. Coaches. Boutique consultancies selling services, products, and bookings in one cart. They want AI to write product descriptions, design layouts, and run their ad copy without paying $2,500 a month for Shopify Plus. They are not building headless. They want one editor and one tool.

4. Hyvä Commerce on Mage-OS

The merchant: done renting their stack.

Magento. Adobe. Let's face it. Adobe does not care about Magento. They see it as a threat. Hello, Magento IS Adobe. They should be gaining sites TO Adobe FROM Magento. It's the perfect funnel. Instead, Adobe sees Magento as competition.

The lack of focus on commerce shows up in poor support, poor performance, and no real roadmap. When I say no real roadmap, I challenge anyone from Adobe to show me their commerce roadmap. No feature ever. No feature planning. Nothing new. Did I mention nothing new?

I got to a lot of Magento conferences. Same slides. No new commerce features. No new commerce features. No new commerce features.

I will not pull punches on Adobe.

One warning before we leave Adobe. The European Magento community sees Hyvä shipping, sees Mage-OS shipping, and assumes the US Magento ecosystem looks the same. It does not. Adobe stopped marketing Magento in the US. Are they signing new US agencies? I doubt it. The US Magento community has been left to fend for itself while Adobe's attention went to AEM and AEP. That's not a Hyvä problem. That's not a Mage-OS problem. That's an Adobe problem. And the US merchant pays for it.

Hyvä is going gangbusters. New products coming out all the time, pushing performance, building everything Adobe Commerce could be but isn't. Hyvä Themes replaced Magento's Knockout.js with Alpine.js and Tailwind, and agencies report 30 to 50% faster builds (Hyvä 2025 product update). 6,400 live stores already run Hyvä (Hyvä 2025 product update). On November 10, 2025, Hyvä Themes went open source under OSL3 and AFL3, announced at Meet Magento Netherlands (iOvista, 2025-11-10). Hyvä Commerce launched the same year as a separate product built to extend Magento Open Source for ops, scalability, and merchant experience (Fluid Commerce, 2025).

Mage-OS is the foundation. A community-governed, upstream-compatible fork of Magento Open Source, run by the independent Mage-OS Association rather than the Adobe-controlled Magento Association (Mage-OS, ongoing). The fork exists because Adobe stopped investing. Adobe Commerce starts at roughly $22,000 per year (Web-vision, 2025). Mage-OS is free.

The merchant who picks Hyvä on Mage-OS is done renting. They want code ownership, performance, and a community that ships. They got tired of waiting for Adobe to come back. So they built without Adobe.

Pro: Open-source ownership, fastest frontend in the category, governed by a community that ships in the open. Con: Requires a development team. This isn't a "set it up in 30 minutes" platform. Real merchant: 6,400+ live Hyvä-powered stores across the Magento ecosystem. Agentic readiness: Open architecture means any agentic layer can be wired in. Nothing is gated by a vendor. Best for: Merchants who picked Magento years ago, watched Adobe stop shipping commerce features, and decided to keep their stack instead of starting over. They want code ownership, not a SaaS subscription. They want the fastest frontend in the category. They want a community-governed platform where the roadmap is in the open. They have a development team or a partner agency who can run it.

5. MedusaJS

The merchant: a team building commerce around the agent, not bolting an agent onto commerce.

I really like what Medusa is doing. The homepage tagline tells you the whole story: "A Commerce Platform for Developers and Agents" (medusajs.com). Not a marketing line bolted onto a SaaS product. The architecture itself was rebuilt around how developers and AI agents work.

Bloom lets you chat to build. Agent Skills are baked into the development experience. One Medusa case study reports 80% cost savings on an AI-powered email-to-order workflow (medusajs.com). That isn't an integration. That's the product.

The proof is on the homepage. Heineken. EightSleep. Mitsubishi Motors. None of those brands picked Medusa because it's free or easy. They picked it because their teams wanted commerce built around how their teams already work. With $29 entry pricing and no GMV tax, the economics aren't the story either. The story is the architecture and the team behind it.

I went deeper on Medusa in (A Look at Medusa Commerce, ACG, December 2025). What stood out then was the architecture. What stands out now is the merchant proof.

Every European platform trying to enter the US market, including Medusa, hits the same wall. Shopify is the gorilla in the room. Shopware is climbing. 300% year-over-year growth, named US wins, real partnerships. Medusa is earlier in that climb. They need boots on the ground in the US. They need US advocates willing to talk about what they're doing well in the markets where Shopify is the default answer. The platforms are good. The marketing fight against Shopify in the US is the harder problem.

The merchant who picks Medusa is a developer-led team that read "agentic commerce" and asked what commerce could look like if you started from the agent, instead of asking how you bolt an agent onto Shopify.

Pro: Architecture built around developers and agents, with named brand proof on the homepage. Con: The US market presence is still building. The community is smaller than Shopify's app ecosystem. Real merchant: Heineken, EightSleep, Mitsubishi Motors (medusajs.com). Agentic readiness: This is the platform where "agentic" isn't a marketing layer. It's the design center. Best for: Developer-led DTC brands who read "agentic commerce" as an architecture decision, not a marketing slide. They have a TypeScript team. They want an open-source platform that ships fast and has Heineken on the homepage. They want commerce APIs an agent can call directly, not a proprietary checkout SDK. They want $29-a-month entry pricing with no GMV tax. They are building the next-generation stack and they want a platform doing the same.

6. WooCommerce

The merchant: the audience-first brand where content built the demand.

WooCommerce is the most-deployed commerce platform on the open web. 4.7 million active stores. 18 to 21% global share by share-of-websites (DigitalApplied 2026). And it's the platform Shopify ignores hardest. Why? Three reasons that matter.

First, the migration goes both ways. 9,195 stores moved from WooCommerce to Shopify in the last measurement period. 7,566 went the other direction, Shopify to WooCommerce (DigitalApplied 2026). That's not a funnel into Shopify. That's a swap. Shopify doesn't draw attention to a flow that runs both ways.

Second, the WooCommerce merchant isn't the Shopify merchant. Shopify sells "store first, content later." The Woo merchant built the audience first and added the cart when the audience was ready to buy. The sales motion doesn't translate. The pitch doesn't land. Shopify's marketing budget can't reach a merchant whose store is a checkout button on a blog they've been writing for ten years.

Third, the plugin moat is unbeatable. 60,000-plus WordPress plugins, any niche use case has a Woo extension that someone built and maintains (Salesforce 2026, generally accepted WordPress.org plugin directory size). Shopify's app store can't match that breadth, and the breadth IS the lock-in. Once a Woo store has fifteen plugins solving fifteen specific problems, it isn't migrating anywhere.

WooCommerce is open source. Free. Bolts onto WordPress. You can run it on WordPress.com, on any managed WordPress host (Pressable, Kinsta, WP Engine, Hostinger, Bluehost, Cloudways), or on your own infrastructure. The optionality is the point. Shopify charges by the seat. WooCommerce charges by the choice you already made when you picked WordPress.

The merchant who picks WooCommerce is the audience-first brand. The publisher, the creator, the ten-year blogger, the membership site, the community. Their content built the demand. The cart just collects on it.

Pro: Open-source, biggest plugin ecosystem on the web, owned by Automattic (not running out of runway). Con: You own the hosting, security, and maintenance choices. That's freedom and that's responsibility. Real merchant: 4.7 million stores running it, including the bidirectional migration crowd. Agentic readiness: WordPress's plugin model means any AI agent layer can plug in. The ecosystem is moving on this faster than the headlines suggest. Best for: Audience-first brands. The publisher who built ten years of newsletter readers and wants to sell them something. The blogger whose audience is bigger than their store. The membership site adding paid courses. The community building a product around their already-loyal followers. They are not picking commerce-first. They are picking content-first, and the cart is the natural extension.

So what?

The pitch is broken. The platforms aren't.

Shopify is good. Shopify is not universal. Anyone selling you "Shopify is perfect for you" is selling Shopify. They are not solving for you. The right question for any merchant is simple. Who is this merchant? What does the platform cost them in flexibility, ownership, and fit?

If you're a B2B distributor with company hierarchies, the answer is Shopware or Adobe Commerce or Hyvä on Mage-OS, depending on whether you want SaaS, enterprise rental, or ownership.

If you're a creator running services and products in one cart, the answer is Wix.

If you're a developer-led DTC brand building the agent-native commerce stack, the answer is Medusa.

If you're a publisher whose audience built the demand, the answer is WooCommerce.

If you're a mid-market merchant who wants SaaS without the walled garden, the answer is BigCommerce. Sorry. Commerce. The product is BigCommerce. The company is Commerce. We'll figure that one out.

If you're done renting your stack, the answer is Hyvä on Mage-OS.

The platform is downstream of the merchant. Pick the merchant first. Pick the platform second.

The next time you hear "Shopify is perfect for you" at a panel, ask the speaker who they're selling to. If they can't answer that without saying "everyone," they're not selling you. They're selling the sponsor.

Question for you

Which of the six would you build on next, and what told you Shopify wasn't the right pick?

I read every comment.

One more question to sit with.

Is the world really better with only one commerce platform?

Sources

The universal pitch (cited examples)

Platform statistics and market share

Commerce (formerly BigCommerce)

Shopware

Wix

Hyvä Commerce on Mage-OS

MedusaJS

WooCommerce


Posted by H at 4:28 AM
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