“If you’re selling old clothes or running an online business, this video will show you how to use Facebook Marketplace correctly,” says Bali. Whether you want to make a few extra bucks or generate thousands in revenue, mastering the art of selling on Facebook Marketplace is essential for success.

Connecting with Targeted Audiences

Facebook Marketplace’s potential is not just about reaching more customers; it also allows you to connect with highly targeted audiences. The platform caters to various products and interests from furniture to electronics, vintage fashion to handmade crafts. The built-in search and filtering features make it easy for customers to find exactly what they’re looking for and for sellers to reach those interested in their products.

Standing Out in a Competitive Space

Bali emphasizes the importance of standing out among the competition. “Why do some people make tons of money with Facebook Marketplace while others struggle?” she asks. Optimizing your posts with high-quality photos, compelling descriptions, and strategic pricing is the answer. By leveraging these tactics, sellers can significantly increase their chances of success and create a sustainable income stream.

Integrating with Shopify for Business Growth

Moreover, Facebook Marketplace’s seamless integration with Shopify and other e-commerce platforms means that established businesses can use it as a powerful tool to drive traffic and boost sales. With the right approach, Facebook Marketplace can be a game-changer for both new and experienced e-commerce entrepreneurs.

Photos: High-Quality Images Matter

“The photos are crucial,” Bali emphasizes. Good lighting, high resolution, and multiple angles are essential for attracting buyers. If you are reselling, she recommends including images from the original seller to give potential buyers more context.

Description and Title: Optimize for Search

Your description and title should be optimized for search terms. Bali suggests listing short and long keywords that people will likely type into Facebook. For example, “iPhone 12 mini green” is better than “used phone.” Be honest in describing the item’s condition and reasons for selling. “Honesty is the best way to get customers and even repeat customers,” she says.

Five Tips to Turbocharge Sales

To ensure success on Facebook Marketplace, Bali provides five practical tips:

1. Timing: Post in the evenings and on weekends when people are more likely to browse.
2. Fast Responses: Respond to inquiries quickly to avoid potential buyers changing their minds.
3. Negotiation: Be open to negotiation, as buyers on Facebook Marketplace are looking for deals.
4. Freebies: Offer a free item related to the product to entice buyers and clear out additional inventory.
5. Patience: Success takes time. Sometimes, you’ll get many responses, and other times, none. It’s all part of the process.

Using Facebook Marketplace to Promote Your Shopify Store

If you have a Shopify store, Facebook Marketplace can be a powerful tool for attracting customers. Here’s how:

Setting Up Your Facebook Shop

1. Go to your Commerce Manager on Facebook.
2. Click on “Catalog,” then “Products,” and select “Add products from a different platform.”
3. Choose Shopify, enter your URL, and click “Connect.”
4. Select the products you want to add and click “Next.”
5. Review the information and click “Publish.”

Choosing Your Checkout Option

Customers can check out directly on your Shopify store or use Facebook’s built-in checkout feature. While Facebook’s checkout is convenient, Bali advises sticking to your Shopify store for a more secure transaction. Adjust your checkout preferences in Shopify’s settings to reflect your choice.

Running Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads are a great way to drive traffic to your Shopify store. Use high-quality images and target your ads carefully to reach the right audience. You can track conversions using Facebook’s tools to see how many people click through your store.

Using Facebook Live

If your budget is tight, use Facebook Live to connect with potential customers in real time. Promote your live events in advance and have a clear plan for what you want to discuss. This way, you can engage with potential buyers directly and answer their questions.

Building Trust and Security

Transparency and Honesty: Key to Success

One of the most important aspects of selling successfully on Facebook Marketplace is building trust with potential customers. According to Michelle Bali, trust begins with transparency and honesty in every listing. “Be upfront about the condition of the item you’re selling and why you’re selling it,” Bali advises. A detailed and accurate description helps buyers make informed decisions and reduces the likelihood of disputes or returns.

Honesty is crucial for creating repeat customers, as satisfied buyers are more likely to recommend your products to others and come back for more. Bali shares a personal experience that underscores this: “One time, I was trying to buy a custom dining table from a woodworker on Facebook Marketplace, but I realized it was a total bait-and-switch situation. It bugged me so much that I decided to take my money elsewhere.” This example serves as a reminder that deceptive practices can alienate potential buyers and harm your reputation.

Secure Transactions: Protecting Buyers and Sellers

Security is another critical factor in building trust on Facebook Marketplace. Unfortunately, scams and fraudulent activity can occur, making it essential to safeguard transactions. Bali recounts an incident where she almost fell victim to a scam involving a fake PayPal payment email. “Something inside me told me to wait, so I called PayPal to confirm the payment. They told me it was totally a scam,” she explains.

Facebook Marketplace offers a range of safety features to protect buyers and sellers. These include user ratings and reviews, secure payment options through PayPal and Facebook Pay, and a dedicated customer support team. Additionally, sellers can further enhance security by connecting their Shopify store to Facebook Marketplace, protecting Shopify’s payment gateway and fraud detection features.

Managing Buyer Expectations and Communication

Effective communication is another cornerstone of trust-building. Bali emphasizes the importance of responding promptly to buyer inquiries. “If someone messages you, message them back as quickly as possible. You don’t want them to change their mind,” she advises.

Setting clear expectations regarding shipping times, payment methods, and return policies also helps to build credibility. Providing accurate delivery estimates, offering flexible return options, and maintaining open lines of communication foster a positive customer experience that encourages repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals.

Facebook Marketplace Policies and Seller Guidelines

Finally, understanding and adhering to Facebook Marketplace’s policies and seller guidelines is crucial for maintaining a trustworthy reputation. This includes avoiding prohibited items, following fair pricing practices, and respecting buyer privacy. By operating within these guidelines, sellers can ensure a positive experience for themselves and their customers, paving the way for sustainable success on the platform.

Big Marketplaces Can Drive Big Business

The allure of Facebook Marketplace lies in its massive user base and unique position as a trusted platform for connecting buyers and sellers. This presents an unprecedented opportunity for new and established businesses to reach a broad audience and generate significant revenue. Michelle Bali, Creative Strategist at Shopify, stresses the importance of taking advantage of the opportunity presented by this vast marketplace. “Whether you’re selling old clothes you don’t wear anymore or actually have a business, getting good at Facebook Marketplace can earn you hundreds, even thousands of dollars,” she emphasizes.

The platform is evolving rapidly, and sellers must adapt proactively to the changing landscape. By mastering the art of creating compelling listings, communicating transparently, and leveraging Facebook’s suite of advertising and live-selling tools, businesses can tap into this marketplace’s vast potential.

Building Long-Term Success with Shopify Integration

Integrating a Shopify store with Facebook Marketplace is a game-changer for those looking to take their business to the next level. It provides seamless inventory management, secure transactions, and automated advertising campaigns that can drive significant traffic and sales. “By connecting your Shopify store to Facebook Marketplace, you just get that added layer of security,” notes Bali. This integration simplifies the selling process and ensures a consistent platform experience.

Moreover, the ability to redirect customers to a branded Shopify store provides a strategic advantage. Sellers can establish their brand, build customer loyalty through email and SMS marketing, and offer exclusive deals to their best customers. Bali says, “The goal is to establish your own brand, control the customer experience, and differentiate yourself from your competitors.”

Leveraging Big Marketplaces for Sustainable Growth

Success on Facebook Marketplace requires patience, persistence, and a strategic approach. Sellers must remain flexible, willing to negotiate, and responsive to customer inquiries. Businesses can stand out in a crowded marketplace by continually refining their listings, offering top-notch customer service, and adopting innovative marketing techniques like Facebook Live.

Ultimately, the key to long-term success is viewing Facebook Marketplace as a gateway to sustainable growth rather than a short-term sales channel. By leveraging the platform’s massive reach and integrating it with their broader e-commerce strategy, sellers can build a thriving business that capitalizes on the opportunities provided by big marketplaces.

In Bali’s words, “Whether you’re just starting or already have a business, there’s no reason not to tap into the potential of Facebook Marketplace. With the right strategy, big marketplaces can truly drive big business.” So, gear up, refine your listings, and embrace the opportunity—because the world is watching, and there’s plenty of room for growth.

Harley Finkelstein, COO of Shopify, discusses how COVID has dramatically sped up the timeline for commerce moving online and has also moved Shopify closer to its goal of becoming the world’s first retail operating system:

Shopify Evolving Into World’s First Retail Operating System

Most people assume that Shopify is an ecommerce provider. We have more than a million stores on Shopify. If you were to aggregate our stores in the US we’d be the second-largest online retailer in America. Of course, we’re not a retailer but we’re a platform. But we now have these great economies of scale that we’re using to level the playing field for entrepreneurs and small businesses. That being said, what really Shopify is evolving into is the world’s first retail operating system. 

What we’re trying to figure out is what do brands and entrepreneurs and retailers need, not just now but in the future? We think the future of retail is retail everywhere. A brand that’s going to be successful in 5, 10 or 15 years from now needs to sell across any platform and across any channel where they have customers. This idea of enabling Shopify merchants to very easily push their products to the Amazon Marketplace or the eBay marketplace or now the Walmart marketplace, that gives them access to a new set of consumers. The idea is that it all feeds back in one centralized back-office, the retail operating system, which is Shopify. 

Then we’ve gone ahead and asked what else can we do for these merchants? Can we do capital? We’ve now given out about a billion dollars worth of cash advances and loans to small businesses. We’re doing fulfillment and we’re doing shipping. We’re increasing the scope and the relationship that we have with the million stores on Shopify. This is allowing them to become category leaders.

COVID Speeds Up The Ecommerce Revolution

From our view, it seems like the commerce world that would have existed in the year 2030 has really been pulled into the year 2020 (as a result of the COVID crisis). We’ve seen ecommerce as a percent of total retail go from 15 percent to 25 percent in the last three months. That’s the same growth rate that we’ve seen over the last 10 years. What really has emerged here is sort of this tale of two retail worlds. On one side you have these resilient retailers that are doing great, they’re pivoting, and they’re expanding their businesses. On the other side, you have these resistant retailers who have not made it. In many ways, it’s probably the most exciting time for retail in a very long time. 

We talk a lot about these direct to consumer brands that are becoming category leaders. The Allbirds and the Gymsharks who started on Shopify when they were very small and have grown to become the incumbents in their industry. Every 25 seconds a brand new entrepreneur makes his or her (products) for sale on Shopify. We talk a lot about those new startups, those new DTC brands. But actually, what we’re also seeing on Shopify are companies like Lindt Chocolate or Heinz ketchup or Chipotle. They are signing up for Shopify and basically from like five days from contract to launch they are completely changing their businesses. 

This resiliency isn’t simply in the hands of just the smallest of brands. Big companies are also beginning to think a lot more about how to stay resilient in this time. They’re moving well beyond ecommerce or thinking about offline commerce now. They’re thinking about how do they sell across social media? How do they sell across different marketplaces? So no, I don’t think it’s too late (to enter ecommerce) but I do think they have to rethink their strategies.

Shopify laid off 1,000 employees in July 2022, with CEO Tobi Lütke saying it was a necessary step after a “bet didn’t pay off.” According to The Deep Dive, however, it appears there is much more behind the company’s layoffs than just a bad bet on the economy.

According to an employee willing to risk legal repercussions to shed light on the matter, Shopify is quietly replacing employees with cheap contract labor and AI. Customer service teams in the US, Canada, and Ireland seem to be especially impacted.

The company’s actions have also cast doubts and raised questions about how much it can be trusted, with both employees and customers alike concerned. Employees wonder if the company’s promise that the layoffs are over can be trusted, while customers wonder if the shift to AI is contributing to the company behaving like other Big Tech companies rather than empowering ‘the little guy.’

Whatever is going on at Shopify, if trust in the company continues to erode, misjudging the economy may not be the last bad bet its leadership is guilty of.

Shopify purchased Deliverr in May 2022 with the goal of challenging Amazon and Walmart in the e-commerce logistics business. Things have not gone according to plan, with the company now selling Deliverr to Flexport.

CEO Tobi Lutke said the deal found the perfect home for Shopify Logistics, including Deliverr:

Flexport, led by CEO Dave Clark and Founder Ryan Petersen, is the best builder and operator in the world of logistics. Contributing our work to Flexport, under the leadership of Harish Abbott, allows everything about Shopify Logistics to be more ambitious and global in nature. Making the global supply chains efficient and software addressable is Flexport’s main quest and so this is the perfect home for this part of Shopify.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Shopify is also selling its 6 River Systems warehouse robotics division to Ocado Group, an automated grocery-fulfillment company in the UK. The outlet also reported Shopify plans to lay off 20% of its staff following the sales.

In his blog post, Lutke says the company periodically must look at its main quest vs side quests and refocus on what’s important. That’s not to say that side quests can’t be important, but they must help further the company’s main quest to continue to make sense. It was this reevaluation that helped lead it to divest itself of its logistics business:

Shopify’s main quest is to make commerce simpler, easier, more democratized, more participatory, and more common. I think that we have built the best commerce platform in the world for that. Technological progress always arcs towards simplicity, and entrepreneurs succeed more when we simplify. But now we are at the dawn of the AI era and the new capabilities that are unlocked by that are unprecedented. Shopify has the privilege of being amongst the companies with the best chances of using AI to help our customers. A copilot for entrepreneurship is now possible. Our main quest demands from us to build the best thing that is now possible, and that has just changed entirely.

Commerce Components is Shopify’s enterprise retail solution. The partnership will bring Google’s Discovery AI to Shopify’s platform, improving search and analytics capabilities.

The new partnerships will help companies and enterprise brands tap into the power of AI to improve product discovery capabilities. According to the two companies, the partnership will improve retail search, product browsing, personalized shopping, personalized recommendations, and enhanced privacy and security.

“We’re thrilled to continue our long-standing partnership with Google Cloud,” said Harley Finkelstein, President of Shopify. “We’re bringing together the best in commerce with the best in search to solve a complex and costly problem for enterprise retailers—world-class search and discovery for the online store.”

“Shopify integrating Google Cloud’s Discovery AI technology into its enterprise retail solution puts the power of AI directly into the hands of merchants and brands to solve everyday problems,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “Now, retailers will be able to enhance their digital properties with better product discovery experiences, creating more fulfilling shopping experiences for their customers.”

Harley Finkelstein, COO of Shopify, discusses how COVID has dramatically sped up the timeline for commerce moving online and has also moved Shopify closer to its goal of becoming the world’s first retail operating system:

Shopify Evolving Into World’s First Retail Operating System

Most people assume that Shopify is an ecommerce provider. We have more than a million stores on Shopify. If you were to aggregate our stores in the US we’d be the second-largest online retailer in America. Of course, we’re not a retailer but we’re a platform. But we now have these great economies of scale that we’re using to level the playing field for entrepreneurs and small businesses. That being said, what really Shopify is evolving into is the world’s first retail operating system. 

What we’re trying to figure out is what do brands and entrepreneurs and retailers need, not just now but in the future? We think the future of retail is retail everywhere. A brand that’s going to be successful in 5, 10 or 15 years from now needs to sell across any platform and across any channel where they have customers. This idea of enabling Shopify merchants to very easily push their products to the Amazon Marketplace or the eBay marketplace or now the Walmart marketplace, that gives them access to a new set of consumers. The idea is that it all feeds back in one centralized back-office, the retail operating system, which is Shopify. 

Then we’ve gone ahead and asked what else can we do for these merchants? Can we do capital? We’ve now given out about a billion dollars worth of cash advances and loans to small businesses. We’re doing fulfillment and we’re doing shipping. We’re increasing the scope and the relationship that we have with the million stores on Shopify. This is allowing them to become category leaders.

COVID Speeds Up The Ecommerce Revolution

From our view, it seems like the commerce world that would have existed in the year 2030 has really been pulled into the year 2020 (as a result of the COVID crisis). We’ve seen ecommerce as a percent of total retail go from 15 percent to 25 percent in the last three months. That’s the same growth rate that we’ve seen over the last 10 years. What really has emerged here is sort of this tale of two retail worlds. On one side you have these resilient retailers that are doing great, they’re pivoting, and they’re expanding their businesses. On the other side, you have these resistant retailers who have not made it. In many ways, it’s probably the most exciting time for retail in a very long time. 

We talk a lot about these direct to consumer brands that are becoming category leaders. The Allbirds and the Gymsharks who started on Shopify when they were very small and have grown to become the incumbents in their industry. Every 25 seconds a brand new entrepreneur makes his or her (products) for sale on Shopify. We talk a lot about those new startups, those new DTC brands. But actually, what we’re also seeing on Shopify are companies like Lindt Chocolate or Heinz ketchup or Chipotle. They are signing up for Shopify and basically from like five days from contract to launch they are completely changing their businesses. 

This resiliency isn’t simply in the hands of just the smallest of brands. Big companies are also beginning to think a lot more about how to stay resilient in this time. They’re moving well beyond ecommerce or thinking about offline commerce now. They’re thinking about how do they sell across social media? How do they sell across different marketplaces? So no, I don’t think it’s too late (to enter ecommerce) but I do think they have to rethink their strategies.

Like many companies, Shopify is working to adjust to a post-pandemic economy, one that may be on the verge of a recession. The company is hoping “chaos engineering” will help it be more nimble and better able to move forward.

“Chaos engineering is the practice of experimenting with a system to build confidence in that system’s ability to withstand turbulent conditions in production,” the company said in internal documents viewed by Business Insider. “It’s also known as chaos monkey, and at Shopify, we apply this practice not just in building great products for our merchants – but in everything we do.”

As part of its new strategy, the company has ended meetings involving more than two people, and all meetings on Wednesday. Large meetings, of 50 or more staff, will be restricted to a specific time-frame on Thursdays.

In addition, the company de-populated all of its public Slack channels, removing all employees from them, deleting chat history, and lowering their limits to 150 people per channel. The company is evidently moving the bulk of its communication to Workspace by Meta, with Slack only serving as a direct message platform.

“We’ve forced our async work into Slack – it’s bloated, noisy, and distracting,” said COO and Vice President of Product Kaz Nejatian. “We have endless channel updates mixed with broad announcements and pineapple on pizza debates.” 

The company acknowledges the plan is disruptive, which is exactly what executives are hoping for.

“All of this feels chaotic, which is kind of the point,” Nejatian said.

After laying off 1,000 employees in July, only time will tell if Chaos Monkey 2023 helps the company achieve its goals.

Companies across the tech industry have started freezing hiring or laying off employees, including Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, Shopify, Tesla, and others. According to Business Insider’s Sawdah Bhaimiya, that strategy is a mistake that will come back to haunt those companies.

Bhaimiya makes the case that each layoff tarnishes a company’s reputation and brand and will hurt its ability to attract top talent down the road.

“Every time I see a notice in the news that such and such technology company has cut X percentage of their workforce, I don’t forget that,” Danny Allen, chief technology officer at software firm Veeam, told Bhaimiya. “So you’re sending a message that also has a brand impact that you don’t necessarily want to be associated with.

“Employees remember and people looking for jobs remember how organizations acted during the economic downturn.”

Allen went on to expound on the two specific ways layoffs hurt a company:

“One is simply the loss of innovation, cutting resources,” said Allen. “You’re cutting your investment in future technology, that’s number one. Number two, when you cut 10% of your workforce, you’re sending the message to your employees that we care more about money than we do about you.

“And employees have a long memory, so if you’re cutting people that uncertainty is very disconcerting.”

How Steve Jobs and Apple Thought Different

Interestingly, Steve Jobs had a very different approach to dealing with an economic downturn, arguably one far worse than the current downturn.

“We’ve had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst,” Jobs said. “What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren’t going to lay off people, that we’d taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place — the last thing we were going to do is lay them off. And we were going to keep funding. In fact we were going to up our R&D budget so that we would be ahead of our competitors when the downturn was over. And that’s exactly what we did. And it worked. And that’s exactly what we’ll do this time.”

Jobs’ approach is the very opposite of what current companies are doing and directly addresses the two issues Allen raises:

• Rather than risking innovation by losing some of its best people, Apple doubled down, intent on innovating through the downturn rather than simply trying to weather it and pick up innovation afterward.
• Jobs reiterated the value he and the company placed on the people who worked there. As Jobs said, Apple had put forth a tremendous amount of effort getting the people it had. Why lose them over a temporary downturn?

It’s safe to say Jobs’ approach is a significant factor in Apple being where it is today. The company’s innovation continued unabated, and its employees felt respected and valued, confident the company had their backs.

Today’s tech companies should take note…or pay the price later.

Shopify, like many companies, experienced something of a boom during the early days of the pandemic, as people stayed at home and shopped online. As CEO Tobi Lütke explains, the company bet the surge would permanently alter the industry:

We bet that the channel mix – the share of dollars that travel through ecommerce rather than physical retail – would permanently leap ahead by 5 or even 10 years. We couldn’t know for sure at the time, but we knew that if there was a chance that this was true, we would have to expand the company to match.

Unfortunately for the company, as things returned to normal online shopping also began to dip.

It’s now clear that bet didn’t pay off. What we see now is the mix reverting to roughly where pre-Covid data would have suggested it should be at this point. Still growing steadily, but it wasn’t a meaningful 5-year leap ahead. Our market share in ecommerce is a lot higher than it is in retail, so this matters. Ultimately, placing this bet was my call to make and I got this wrong. Now, we have to adjust. As a consequence, we have to say goodbye to some of you today and I’m deeply sorry for that.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the layoffs will impact 10% of the company’s staff or roughly 1,000 employees.

Shopify is one of the leading online shopping platforms, but it has to compete with more traditional businesses as well. The company is obviously doing well, bringing in $1.2 billion in revenue in Q122, a 22% increase. Shopify is now building on that momentum with a deal to acquire Deliverr.

“While we’ve experienced massive macro shifts since the start of the pandemic, the one mainstay has been that Shopify is the commerce platform of choice for merchants in any environment, with the ability to support commerce on any surface,” said Harley Finkelstein, Shopify’s President. “This has earned Shopify significant merchant trust and the ability to help them with more parts of their business, which is why we are eager to bring Deliverr’s team and technology to our merchants.”

The move will help Shopify provide the logistics supplier infrastructure its customers need.

Deliverr’s asset-light infrastructure complements and extends the reach of Shopify’s network of large-capacity, self-operated hubs, and enhances affordable access to a two-day delivery promise in the U.S. across all channels. With Deliverr, Shopify strengthens its ability to offer merchants simplified inventory management, demand-driven inventory balancing, and fast delivery from coast to coast, with minimal inventory required. Deliverr, which ships over a million orders per month across the U.S., has already benefited thousands of merchants, many of whom use Shopify, as the hyper-fragmented market of freight forwarders, transportation providers, and 3rd-party logistics companies can be overwhelming for users.

TikTok is one of the most popular, and most controversial, social media platforms. While it has a user base and growth rate to make other platforms green with envy, the company continues to faceprivacy abuse allegations and has been on the receiving end of a campaign by the previous administration to ban the platform.

None of those challenges are stopping the company from expanding into the job market, with the unveiling of TikTok Resumes.

“We’re excited to launch ‘TikTok Resumes’ as a pilot program designed to continue expanding and enhancing TikTok as a new channel for recruitment and job discovery,” reads the company’s blog. “We’re teaming up with select companies and inviting job seekers to apply for entry-level to experienced positions with some of the world’s most sought-after employers, including Chipotle, Target, WWE, Alo Yoga, Shopify, Contra, Movers+Shakers, and many more, with a TikTok video resume. Interested candidates are encouraged to creatively and authentically showcase their skillsets and experiences, and use #TikTokResumes in their caption when publishing their video resume to TikTok.”

While many users may be reluctant to trust the platform with something as important as their job prospects, it appears the fledgling service already has an impressive array of companies onboard.

Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms, powering some $120 billion in Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) in 2020. Until now, the company took a 20% revenue commission, but the company is waiving that for smaller developers.

Developers who build for the Shopify App Store will now pay 0% revenue share for the first $1M they earn annually on the platform starting on August 1. That’s down from 20%. The $1M benchmark resets annually.

The same 0% revenue share model will also be available to Theme Store developers. 

The announcement follows similar moves by Google, Apple and Amazon as app ecosystems are increasingly under scrutiny by regulators. Whatever the motivation, the move will certainly help small developers.

Fastly has said a single customer caused yesterday’s outage, an outage that had widespread repercussions.

Fastly made headlines yesterday when an issue with the company’s network led to a major outage. As a content delivery network, some of the biggest companies in the world rely on Fastly, including Amazon, the BBC, CNN, Financial Times, The New York Times, Reddit, Spotify, GitHub, Twitch, Stack Overflow, Hulu, HBO Max, Quora, PayPal, Shopify, Stripe and Vimeo.

According to TheStreet, the company rolled out a software update in May that introduced a bug that could be triggered under very specific circumstances. The bug only needed a single customer to have a very specific configuration for the bug to active, which ultimately happened.

“Even though there were specific conditions that triggered this outage, we should have anticipated it,” the company said. “We apologize to our customers and those who rely on them for the outage and sincerely thank the community for its support.”

A glitch at Fastly, a popular CDN, led to outages for some of the internet’s biggest sites Tuesday morning.

CDNs, or content delivery networks, are distributed networks of servers designed to help websites and web apps manage their user load and remain responsive. Fastly is a popular CDN option that helps power some of the biggest websites on the net.

Early Tuesday, a glitch at Fastly led to outages at the BBC, CNN, Financial Times, The New York Times, Reddit, Spotify, GitHub, Twitch, Stack Overflow, Hulu, HBO Max, Quora, PayPal, Shopify, Stripe and Vimeo.

Fastly confirmed the issue, and was able to quickly resolve it, although the outage illustrates the challenges associated with so many websites relying on a single point of potential failure.

“Today’s outage of major websites once again highlights the importance of access to online news and government services, underlining the importance of the internet for day to day living,” Matthew McDermott, Senior Officer, Access Partnership, a global tech policy consultancy, told WebPronews. “Fastly responded quickly to restored the issue but this serves as a reminder that resilience is an important part of digital infrastructure to modern life. Organisations and government bodies need to look at implementing the steps that look to assess, stabilize, improve and monitor to ensure this issue do not pose further problems in the future. Assessment is needed to determine the server’s bottleneck then stabilizing the issue with implementation of quick fixes will mitigate impact to broader stakeholders and users. After this, stakeholders will need to improve by augmenting and optimize server capabilities to ensure it meets the necessary needs. Lastly, regular monitoring will need to be set up using automated tools to help prevent future issues.”

Senator Josh Hawley introduced a bill Monday aimed at addressing antitrust concerns, but it may do more harm than good.

Antitrust has become a major concern for politicians on both sides of the aisle. Google and Facebook are both facing antitrust lawsuits, and officials are looking at various ways of addressing the overarching concerns about the tech industry in general.

Senator Hawley’s bill would ban companies with a market cap over $100 billion from buying any startups. As Business Insider columnist Jason Aten writes, however, such a move would harm startups far more than it would hurt Big Tech.

Acquisition is one of the main goals of many startup founders, providing an exit strategy and payday for successful founders and investors. For better or worse, large companies are an important part of that strategy. If they are blocked from acquiring companies, it could completely disrupt the startup scene.

Another major downside is the disparity between large and small companies that may be over $100 billion. Aten uses the example of Shopify, a company large enough to fall under Hawley’s bill. Shopify would be prohibited from buying an up-and-coming app, service or platform that could help it better compete with much larger rivals, such as Amazon or Walmart. Such an outcome would only hurt Shopify, while protecting the larger company even more.

Aten’s take on the situation well-illustrates the challenges of addressing antitrust issues without creating even more problems.

Shopify President Harley Finkelstein says the rebels―the entrepreneurs and the small business owners―are the heroes of the Shopify story… and the rebels are winning:

We Are Arming The Rebels

There’s a lot to be optimistic about even in the second half of 2021. It feels like the retail world that would have existed in 2030 was pulled back to 2020. We certainly have seen this massive catalyst to an acceleration in digitalization in commerce and retail. But actually, we are writing the future of commerce and entrepreneurs are really the heroes of the Shopify story. We are arming the rebels… the entrepreneurs, the small business owners, the independent brands, and the rebels are winning.

Consumers have been voting with their wallets for the last ten months or so to buy from independent brands wherever possible. In 2020, 47 million consumers purchased from a Shopify merchant. That’s up 52 from 2019. Our merchant’s performance helped expand Shopify’s lead on an aggregated basis to be the second-largest e-commerce retailer in the U.S. Shopify is now about nine percent of all US ecom. If you think about it, Shopify is a proxy for independent retail and for direct-to-consumer retail.

Shop Pay Launches Accelerated Checkout

We only succeed when our merchants do. This has led to us having more than 1.7 million merchants on Shopify. This includes people from first-time entrepreneurs making their first sale every 28 seconds to the likes of O’Neill and Hallmark and Herman Miller and Purina. Diageo, who also just launched in Shopify and in Q4 alone revenue nearly doubled year over year to $978 million. There’s a lot to be optimistic about. Actually, the future of retail and commerce we think is going to look a lot more like these independent brands than these sort of department stores that existed in the past.

Shop Pay is our accelerated checkout. We just announced it last week. We know that it not only helps merchants get more sales, it helps buyers convert better and much faster. Now we think that providing it to the Instagram and Facebook platforms means that our merchants can not only access new customers on those platforms, and frankly anywhere where customers are, but now can transact in a more efficient way. Shopify is becoming far more than an e-commerce provider.

Future of Retail Is Wherever Consumers Are

We are trying to build the world’s first retail operating system, which makes it as easy as possible and where the cost of failure is as low as possible, so more people can participate in entrepreneurship. We think the future retail is not online or offline or anywhere, in particular, it’s wherever consumers are. That’s what we’re trying to build. Seeing Shop Pay move into Facebook and Instagram is a really great way to demonstrate where the future of retail is happening.

We are trying to get to a point where we completely democratize entrepreneurship. We use a 100-year perspective and we want to build a 100-year company. We’re about 15 years into our journey right now and we have 85 years left to go. In the long run, we’re happy where Shopify is but frankly, on the topic of more participation in the equity markets, we think that is also entrepreneurial and we think that’s also democratizing.

Postscript announced it has raised $4.5 million in seed funding to help bring turbocharged SMS marketing to Shopify and e-commerce stores.

Postscript specializes in SMS marketing for e-commerce. The company’s goal is to help bring SMS marketing mainstream, while at the same time doing it in a way that respects users’ inboxes.

The company has now raised $4.5 million to help it reach that goal. The investors include Y Combinator, Accomplice, 1984vc, and Ali Capital. Postscript also has the backing of some of the biggest entrepreneurial names in the e-commerce industry.

“At Postscript, we obsess about supporting independent brands & e-commerce merchants and will always put their needs first,” said CEO Adam Turner. “Our approach to text messaging emphasizes brands build meaningful relationships with their customers by respecting the SMS inbox and encouraging two way communication. So far our competitive advantage has been our people and our product, and this funding will help us continue along that path. By operating remotely, we’re able to hire in any region, resulting in an extremely talented team dedicated to delivering a top-tier product and customer experience.”

Postscript already claims Native, Brooklinen, StackCommerce, Frey, Oars + Alps and Olivers among its clients. The company also boasts 26x ROI with clickthrough rates ranging between 7.5% and 40%. Somewhat unique to the industry, Postscript guarantees a 4x ROI or they will refund a client’s investment — something they have not yet had to do.

“The Postscript team has taken a product-first approach to a gigantic, fast-growing market, and the growth speaks for itself,” said angel investor Paul English, founder of Kayak. “They have outstanding founder/product/market fit, and I believe what they’re building will be an essential part of any e-commerce company’s marketing stack. I’m proud to support them in this round.”

As the coronavirus pandemic spreads around the country and globe, Shopify has joined the ranks of tech companies instructing their employees to work from home. The company made the announcement in a tweet:

As COVID-19 continues to impact people and countries around the world, Shopify will be going remote first starting March 16th. Working from home will help play a part in reducing the spread of the virus, and hopefully lessen its potentially huge burden on the healthcare system.

— Shopify (@Shopify) 3/11/20

According to Business Insider sources, the company is going a step further by giving all of its employees $1,000 to buy what they need to help furnish and set up their work-from-home space. It’s unclear how the company is doing this, whether in the form of a bonus or strictly by reimbursement. The company is also allowing employees to take home whatever office equipment they need to work from home.

Numerous companies have already announced work-from-home plans, and in the wake of President Trump’s address Wednesday night, that number is likely to grow.

“Even if you go beyond just Kylie, you look at companies like Bombas and Allbirds and Tommy John and Fashion Nova, these are brands that didn’t exist five or ten years ago and they’re absolutely doing incredible numbers on Shopify with no slowing down in mind,” says Finklestein. “Shopify was built to help anyone that has an idea start a great business and sell to a global audience.”

Harley Finkelstein, COO of Shopify, talks about the incredible numbers DTC brands are doing on Shopify, the huge success of Shopify Capital, and their quick acceptance of cannabis stores in Canada and potentially the rest of the world, in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:

DTC Brands Doing Incredible Numbers on Shopify

We’re really happy with how we ended the year and certainly, the quarter was great and we’re really excited about our future. We’ve been at this now for almost 14 years. We’ve grown to 820,000 merchants up from 600,000 merchants a year ago. We have a big top of funnel with brand new entrepreneurs getting started on Shopify for the very first time. We also have some very large brands like the big CPGs and some big direct to consumer (DTC) companies all using Shopify to scale their businesses. We’ve got a really great business model and we’re having a lot of fun.

It’s amazing. I think the Kylie story ($1 billion in sales) was surprising to a lot of people, not for us because we see so many stories like that all the time. Whether it’s Kanye West launching his Yeezy store on Shopify or Drake’s store or Tom Brady’s new store, we see all of these major brands and huge influencers using Shopify to create authentic products and sell it to the audience. I always sort of think back to if DTC and direct-to-consumer were around when Michael Jordan was creating the Jordan brand with Nike I think Nike would be a supplier and Michael Jordan would be the brand. He would own the entirety of his business as opposed to getting a licensing fee.

We’re really excited about this. But even if you go beyond just Kylie, you look at companies like Bombas and Allbirds and Tommy John and Fashion Nova, these are brands that didn’t exist five or ten years ago and they’re absolutely doing incredible numbers on Shopify with no slowing down in mind. Shopify was built to help anyone that has an idea start a great business and sell to a global audience. We really do bend the learning curve to make it really easy to get started.

Shopify Helping Democratize the Entire Business Process

The ones that succeed, not all of them do, but the ones that do succeed they grow really large with us and over time we want to provide them with more services and more solutions. For example, we launched Shopify Payments a couple of years ago. We went to the payments companies and negotiated rates on their behalf. We launched Shopify Shipping and went to the shipping company and negotiated shipping costs on their behalf. We always are trying to find economies of scale to help democratize the entire business process for these small businesses.

More recently we realized that a lot of these small businesses also need capital. Because we have so much information on them we’re able to make really quick and very effective underwriting decisions so we were able to go and offer them capital cash advances. We’ve given out hundreds of millions of dollars of cash advances to a lot of these small businesses who if it wasn’t for Shopify would not be able to get this money on their own.

Entrepreneurs Want to Own Their Audience

Etsy fundamentally is a marketplace. Etsy is a place where someone who makes a product can go to find an audience. But our feeling is that you know for an entrepreneur they don’t always want to rent the audience. They want to own the audience. They want to have a direct relationship with their customers. They want to own the entire to profit margin. They want to be able to sell and have long-term relations with the people that are buying their products.

So companies like Etsy do a really good job of curating a bunch of products and renting those customers to those makers. We think the marketplaces are really great but we think ultimately makers and entrepreneurs and merchants want to have a direct relationship with the people buying their products. One of the things that is not well known about Shopify but one way to think about what we do is really this retail operating system. Merchants can start a store with us very easily and they can build a beautiful online store but they can also cross-sell to different marketplaces like eBay or Amazon.

The idea is that it feeds all feeds back in one centralized back office which is Shopify. That’s where they can run the entirety of their business. Really the idea is let’s become the most important piece of software they use on a daily basis. The first thing they open every morning, the last thing they close every night. So obviously marketplace will play a role there but ultimately merchants want to find customers wherever those customers exist and more and more they want to sell direct to those customers.

Shopify Facilitating Cannabis Sales in Canada

The reason we started with Canada was there was clarity in Canada. The Canadian government, the legislature, they were very clear with how they were going to roll out the commercialization and the legalization of cannabis sales on the consumer side. We felt it was really important for us to act quickly and effectively to not only win as much of the Canadian market as we possibly could but also to show the rest of the world as they begin to think about cannabis sales that we are the first phone call that they should be making.

Whether it’s the province of Ontario or British Columbia or most of the largest licensed producers like Canopy in Canada, Shopify is what’s powering those retail sales. We think that we can do a great job helping other countries and other regions do the same thing.

Amazon may be the dominant cloud player, but Microsoft and Google are both working to chip away at that lead. One area, in particular, that Amazon is vulnerable is in the retail market. Many retailers are reluctant to rely on the cloud giant, with whom they often compete with for online sales. Microsoft has made headlines lately with a focus on the retail market, emphasizing partnership with retail customers, rather than competing with them.

Google appears to be taking the same approach, improving their retail-oriented features in the hopes of continuing to be an appealing alternative to Amazon. According to a post on the company’s blog, Google has expanded its Retail Acceleration Program (RAP).

“That’s why we’re excited to expand our Retail Acceleration Program (RAP) to a broader set of customers in 2020. RAP is a services offering that helps retailers optimize their websites, build a unified view of customer data, and drive increased foot traffic. Today, we’re also expanding the availability of Customer Reliability Engineering, a white-glove service that helps retailers plan and execute flawlessly during their peak shopping seasons. Customers such as Kohl’s, Wayfair, and Shopify have already turned to Google Cloud to help them stay worry-free during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.”

Google is also using its position to help retailers provided a unified experience for customers.

“Retail customers are becoming more and more “channel-less” in their shopping. It’s imperative, then, to provide a consistent experience for customers as they move between channels in their shopping journeys. Our Google Cloud API Management for Retail solution, powered by Apigee, allows retailers to easily integrate the systems that power different sales channels, providing a more unified shopping experience for customers.

“Retailers struggle with the real estate that bulky computer servers take up in their stock rooms, and also face challenges in centrally managing all of their server applications. Today, we’re piloting Google Cloud Anthos for Retail, which helps retailers streamline and modernize their store operations. Rolling out more broadly in 2020, Anthos for Retail enables retailers to consistently deploy, configure, and manage applications across their fleet of stores at scale—without sacrificing performance or reliability.”

With Google a distant third among U.S. cloud providers, behind Amazon and Microsoft, it will be interesting to see if the company’s retail efforts yield results.