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Comment by mtw | Hacker News Reader

Does it really mean that Shopify is selling more than eBay? There are lots of indie entrepreneurs who open a site with shopify and pay for the Shopify subscription only to discover that they don't have nowhere near the the number of sales or even visitors they hoped.

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No, this just means that Shopify has a high stock market valuation. This isn't looking at sales figures at all.

And since they just rent software to people who sell things I'm not sure it makes sense to compare them to more traditional eCommerce plays (if you started selling homes through Shopify somehow it would hugely increase "sold goods", but not in a way that impacts anything).

This article isn't clear about it but yes - its about the amount people sell on both platforms, not stock price.

Now, is that a useful basis of comparison? It's fun fact but not much more given the difference of the platforms.

Yeah, that's what I susp3too. It's is a bit of a hype.. I guess shopify will run out of "dreamers" in two years or so.. Then they probably go from flat to "pay per article" or so and call it better customer service and pricing :)

I have a niche e-commerce business I run mostly for fun, although it does make a decent profit vs. the time I put into it. I originally had woocommerce, a paid theme, digital ocean, MySQL, backups, stripe integration, etc. and honestly it was a hassle. I switched everything and now pay Shopify my $30 per month and don’t even think about it. $360 per year is pocket change vs. my stress level.

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