2021 was an exciting and monumental year in e-commerce. BNPL became a standard way to purchase items online. Major companies changed their names and experienced high profile executive turnover. Google fought to regain its share of e-commerce searches. India rewrote the rules of e-commerce within their borders. Shopify integrated with, well, everyone. And aggregators popped up faster than weeds in a garden.
I launched the Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter in January 2021 to highlight the most important happenings in our industry and have since published 48 weekly editions. Thanks for being a subscriber!
This week's 49th newsletter is a lookback at 2021 In Review. I've recapped the most notable news from this past year (in reverse chronological order) so that you can have a big picture view of what happened in e-commerce in 2021.
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December 2021
- Shopify rolled out its integrated NFT feature for Shopify Plus merchants
- Alibaba revealed its vision to 5x its Southeast Asian platform Lazada
- H&R Block sued Block (formerly Square) over its name change
- Amazon partnered with Instalments to offer BNPL in Britain
- Belk brought BNPL to brick-and-mortar stores via partnership with Afterpay
- Business Insider leaked Meta's plans to take on Shopify next year
- TikTok produced its first live shopping event
- Target Australia re-platformed to run on AWS
- Amazon reportedly plans to launch Instacart-like service in USA and Europe next year
- Shopify was sued by five textbook publishers for allowing the sale of pirated text books
- #SpotifyWrapped incorporated artist merch into its campaign for the first time
- Square renamed itself Block
- Nestlé announced plans to double down on e-commerce
- Hedge funds urged Kohl's to sell their company or separate its e-commerce business
- Tencent opened its WeChat groups to allow Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao shopping links
- PayPal’s Buy Now Pay Later service became available to Wix sellers
November 2021
- Twitter tested livestream shopping with Walmart and Jason Derulo
- Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO of Twitter
- Spotify launched a Netflix Hub
- AirAsia launched a last-mile parcel delivery service
- Google Shopping and American Express created shoppable street murals
- fabric introduced a B2B marketplace
- Amazon informed customers that they will no longer accept Visa credit cards in Britain
- Macy’s hired AlixPartners to explore an e-commerce spinoff
- Payment apps will start reporting transactions larger than $600 to the IRS
- Linktree added Shopify storefronts to its platform
- Shopify and Ledger’s class action lawsuit was dismissed by California court
- Google started showing a Deals tab in Shopping results
- Shopify and MailChimp made amends after 2 1/2 years
- Facebook became Meta and outlined their plans for a VR / AR powered future
- Shopify doubled its GMV in 16 months from $200B to $400B
October 2021
- PayPal didn't buy Pinterest after toying with the idea
- Shopify teamed up with Spotify to allow artists to sell merch on their Spotify profiles
- Amazon launched Local Selling for merchants to offer in-store pickup
- BigCommerce direct integrated with Google Shopping
- Reuters revealed Amazon India's systematic campaign of knocking off merchants
- Square announced that they are building Bitcoin mining hardware
- Walmart launched a merch store for Netflix shows
- Shopify launched a Global ERP Program
- TikTok reached 1 billion users and are building an e-commerce marketplace
- Noon.com raised $2B in financing
- Shopify reopened their Los Angeles creator studio
- Amazon launched an artist merch shop to sell officially licensed merch
- Mastercard launched a Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) program
- Lightspeed was attacked by short sellers
September 2021
- Squarespace introduced new e-commerce features including physical products, digital content, classes, appointments, and reservations
- Roku launched an app for Shopify ads
- Shopify surpassed Amazon in online traffic
- Shopify unveiled Shopify Markets to manage global commerce
- Adobe added payments services to its e-commerce platform
- FedEx and Salesforce teamed up to compete with Amazon
- WPEngine launched a headless e-commerce framework
- Intuit acquired MailChimp
- Amazon announced that they're developing a point of sale (POS) system
- Shopify invested $30M into YotPo
- A federal judge declared that Apple must allow 3rd party payment processing in their app store
- Wix completed a $200M share repurchase
- FedEx launched an international e-commerce shipping service
- Revolut launched a BNPL program
- Best Buy expanded into new consumer markets to compete with Walmart and Amazon
- Facebook Pay became available on Shopify
- NYC approved a cap on food delivery service fees
August 2021
- Amazon partnered with Affirm to offer BNPL
- Warby Parker had an IPO
- Walmart launched a delivery-as-a-service program for 3rd party merchants
- Amazon eclipsed Walmart as the world's largest retailer outside of China
- Shopify was sued in California for collecting and storing consumer info
- Vista (formerly VistaPrint) and Wix partnered up
- Jack Dorsey announced plans to develop a hardware Bitcoin wallet
- Wix launched a no-code app builder
- 50k Chinese merchants were banned from Amazon for fraudulent reviews
- Amazon was accused of evading tax by shifting £8.2B to Luxembourg
- Indian Supreme Court decided that Amazon and Flipkart should face investigations
- Apple partnered with Affirm’s PayBright subsidiary to launch a new BNPL platform in Canada
- Square bought Afterpay for $29B
- BigCommerce partnered with Sezzle for BNPL
- Shopify opened a creator space in NYC
- Twitter started testing e-commerce on its platform
- Shopify added support for non-fungible-tokens (NFTs)
- BigCommerce acquired Feedonomics
July 2021
- EcommerceBytes filed a lawsuit against Ebay for intimidation, threats, and harassment
- XPO Logistics spunout of GXO Logistics
- BigCommerce partnered with Mercado Libre
- Amazon launched Kindle Vella
- Stamps.com went private in a $6B cash deal
- Etsy acquired Elo7 for $217M
- PayPal launched a digital POS for US merchants
June 2021
- India proposed tightening its e-commerce rules
- Shopify started testing a platform-wide affiliate program
- Five bills were introduced in Congress that are aimed at limiting Big Tech’s power and dominance in the market
- Wix launched a food ordering app called Dine By Wix
- Facebook debuted new commerce tools including Shops on WhatsApp
- Shopify confirmed rumors that it purchased a $350M stake in payment processor Stripe
- Wix acquired dropshipping provider Modalyst
- Shop Pay rolled out on Google and Facebook
- GoDaddy launched payment processing services
- eBay sold their Korean marketplace for $3.6B
- Wix launched its own POS
- Lightspeed acquired Ecwid
- Netflix began selling merch through its new online shop Netflix.shop
- Shopify acquired the team from the augmented reality startup Primer
- Shopify rolled out Affirm payment options to stores via Shop Pay
- DHL ordered 2,000 new warehouse robots to keep up with e-commerce demand
- Alibaba formed an R&D division to develop a driverless truck
- Etsy acquired the fashion resale marketplace Depop
- eBay cut ties with PayPal and started depositing funds direct to seller bank accounts
- Shippo raised $50M and became a unicorn
- BigCommerce launched their B2B Edition
- BLS International signed an exclusive 3-year agreement with Amazon India for cash on pick-up
- Wix removed a Hong Kong pro democracy website and then put it back and apologized
- Microsoft launched Smart Shopping
May 2021
- Twitter launched their Blue Subscription service
- Amazon acquired MGM Studios for $8.45B
- Shopify brought its POS and Payments systems to Australia
- Google revealed their Shopping Graph and partnered with Shopify, Square, GoDaddy, and WooCommerce for direct integration
- Shopify struck a deal with Google Cloud to better handle higher levels of traffic
- Shopify integrated with Sweet so that merchants could sell NFTS
- SquareSpace (SQSP) went public through a direct listing instead of an IPO
- Global E-Online (GLBE) went public through an IPO after Shopify invested $193M pre-IPO
- Shopifreaks coined the term Shopify Saints for former Shopify employees who have moved on to launch companies, but it didn't stick.
- Shopify joined the Open Invention Network (OIN)
- Commonwealth Bank and BigCommerce partnered to help clients set up their own digital storefronts
- Shopify was named as one of the TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2021
- MailChimp launched its own e-commerce platform and appointment booking service for small businesses
April 2021
- Amazon started testing a pilot program that allows merchants to market to customers via e-mail
- Shopify added Amazon order tracking to its Shop App
- Pinterest expanded its Shopify integration to 27 new countries
- Three of Shopify’s top execs left the company
- Chick-fil-A and Shopify delivered spicy chicken sandwiches via robots in Santa Monica
- TCC took over six floors of Shopify’s offices to rent as flex space after Shopify announced that its 7000+ employees would be permanently working remotely
- Shopify removed 1.5% of apps from their marketplace for not meeting their standards of trust and integrity
- A grand jury indicted Tassilo Heinrich for stealing Shopify customer data on over a hundred merchants
- A class action lawsuit was filed against Shopify and Ledger over a 2020 customer data breach
- Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke asked the DeFi community on Twitter what they were most excited about
- Keith Rabois and Jack Abraham launched OpenStore
March 2021
- Shopify added a directory of Asian owned businesses to its Shop App
- Walmart opened its marketplace to non-US sellers
- Amazon surpassed Walmart as the top apparel retailer in the US
- Former Shopify employees launched Backbone Angels
- TikTok’s integration with Shopify expanded to Canada and Europe
- RageOn lost their case against Shopify
- LockeBio launched their “Shopify for Pharma” e-commerce platform
February 2021
- Shopify launched an e-sports organization called Rebellion
- Amazon acquired the e-commerce platform Selz
- Fabric raised $43M in their Series A
January 2021
- Bold Commerce raised $35M to expand beyond Shopify
- I launched the Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter
I hope you had a great year in e-commerce! Thanks for being a Shopifreaks subscriber.