What Is Shopify and How Does It Work? (2026)

Shopify is a commerce platform that lets you sell online and in person and manage your business from one place.

Every day, millions of people use Shopify to power their businesses. From online side hustles to global retail giants, Shopify makes commerce better for everyone.

Explore the essential Shopify features that help you make sales and manage your store.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is a commerce platform that helps you sell online and in person. Entrepreneurs, retailers, and global brands use Shopify to make sales, run stores, and grow their businesses.

From your Shopify dashboard, you can track customer orders and monitor your stock levels. Payment processing tools let you accept payments from customers at checkout, all without coding.

You can also offer omnichannel shopping experiences, where customers shop across your website and physical store. For example, someone can order online and pick up their purchase in person.

Start your business journey with a free trial to build your store and explore its features. Trial lengths vary, and you’ll need to select a paid plan to start selling.

How Shopify works

Shopify’s tools and products work together as a unified system to help you sell everywhere.

Build an online store

Use AI to design your store and create product pages.

Build a store in minutes with the online store editor. Use AI to generate a store theme by describing your brand or products.

Or choose from more than 1,250 pre-built industry themes that spark joy with dynamic scrolling and hover effects. Themes are mobile-friendly and customizable without coding.

Add features to your website with apps and use Sidekick, Shopify’s AI assistant, to help you write product descriptions and original content. Sidekick is included with your Shopify plan, though features and usage limits vary.

Discover the store builder.

Find products

Sell your crafts or browse supplier inventory.

Find products to sell by connecting with verified suppliers. Design custom goods using print-on-demand, source products with a dropshipping app, or stock independent brands from the wholesale marketplace Faire.

Browse Shopify Collective for products your customers will love from other Shopify brands. Import items into your store, and the supplier ships orders directly to your customers once you make a sale.

Find out more about product sourcing.

Turn browsers into buyers

Give customers a fast, secure way to pay.

When you’re ready to start selling, Shopify Checkout guides customers through entering their delivery details and paying for their order.

Set up Shopify Payments, Shopify’s built-in payment service, to accept credit and debit cards. Available payment methods depend on your country. If your business isn’t eligible for Shopify Payments, you can use a third-party payment provider.

Adding Shop Pay lets shoppers save their payment and shipping details for faster checkout on future purchases. It’s included with Shopify Payments and also works with certain other payment options in eligible countries.

Find out more about selling.

Automate shipping

When orders come in, get them out the door.

Shipping with Shopify is simple, fast, and cost-effective. Buy and print shipping labels and send customers tracking updates from your Shopify admin. Buying labels depends on your fulfillment location—the place you ship orders from. Available carriers and discounts vary by country, with US stores able to save up to 88% on USPS labels.

For international orders, you can also collect duties and import taxes at checkout when your store meets the requirements.

As orders increase, use the Shopify Fulfillment Network to find a provider that stores, packs, and ships your products. The app is available to businesses shipping orders from the United States.

Offer local delivery to nearby shoppers, and display delivery dates with Shop Promise for eligible shipments. Shop Promise requires qualifying delivery performance and a US fulfillment location.

Find out more about shipping.

Sell everywhere

Selling products through your website is just the beginning.

Use Shopify to promote and sell on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Shopping features and eligibility vary by platform and country.

Extend your reach by serving international customers and listing products on marketplaces. Shopify Marketplace Connect keeps listings, orders, and stock levels updated across Shopify and marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay. Walmart and Target Plus connections are available for US.

For in-person sales, Shopify POS lets you take payments at a store or pop-up while keeping stock levels synced with your website. Shopify card readers and integrated card payments are available in supported countries. Elsewhere, you can use an external card terminal and record payments in POS.

Agentic storefronts help shoppers discover eligible products through AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini. For ChatGPT, your store can be based outside the US but must sell to US customers. Shoppers complete their purchase on your online store.

Discover sales channels.

Market your brand

Know your audience to boost shelf appeal.

Use analytics reports to understand what leads people to your website and what converts them into customers.

Create email and text message campaigns with Shopify Messaging. Group subscribers by their interests or past purchases, then send relevant offers and follow-up messages.

Sending campaigns requires an active paid plan. Text messages are available for customers in supported countries who have opted in.

You can also partner with influencers through Shopify Collabs. They introduce your products to their followers and you pay commissions on the sales they generate.

Find out more about marketing tools.

Integrate 21,000+ apps

Everything from dropshipping to AI-powered customer support.

Expand your store’s features with apps from Shopify and third-party developers.

Browse more than 21,000 apps to add features such as customer reviews, subscriptions, and loyalty rewards. Some apps are free and others charge usage or subscription fees.

Visit the App Store.

Manage your finances

Manage business spending from Shopify.

Shopify helps you calculate sales tax and monitor business expenses. With Shopify Balance, you can receive money from sales, pay business expenses, and track transactions. Balance is a money management account available to eligible merchants in the US and Puerto Rico who use Shopify Payments.

Keep bestsellers stocked and ads running with funding from Shopify Capital, available to approved businesses in supported countries.

Or earn up to 3% cash back with Shopify Credit on your highest eligible spending category, subject to spending limits. Credit is available to eligible merchants in the US and Puerto Rico who use Shopify Payments.

Find out more about financial services.

Keep growing

Entrepreneurship is an infinite game where there’s always room to grow.

The Shopify Plus plan is for high-growth businesses with large sales volumes. Get more ways to customize checkout, add unlimited staff accounts, and manage additional stores as your business expands.

Unlock scalable, flexible commerce with the Enterprise plan and get deeper platform control, dedicated support, and infrastructure built for complex operations at scale.

Brands like Glossier, Mattel, and Converse manage direct-to-consumer (DTC), business-to-business (B2B), retail, and international sales from a single platform.

Find out how Shopify helps you grow.

Plans and pricing

Shopify charges a subscription fee for access to its tools, with plans for different business needs:

• Basic: For solo entrepreneurs.
• Grow: For small teams.
• Advanced: For growing businesses.
• Plus: For high-growth businesses with large sales volumes.
• Enterprise: For large organizations that need custom pricing, dedicated account management, and more control over their setup.

Basic, Grow, and Advanced offer monthly or annual billing. Payment processing fees are charged separately with rates depending on your plan, country, and payment method.

With most third-party payment providers, you also pay a transaction fee to Shopify on top of the provider’s processing fee. Payments processed through Shopify Payments don’t have this additional fee.

Shopify POS and POS Pro are available on all plans. See pricing for details.

Shopify earns money from both subscriptions and merchant services, including payment processing and shipping labels.

See all plans and pricing.

Who uses Shopify: from first sale to full scale

Solo founders launch their first stores on Shopify. Small businesses and global brands use the same platform to manage daily sales and expand into new markets:

• Every 26 seconds, an entrepreneur makes their first sale on Shopify.
• Millions of businesses in more than 175 countries use Shopify, from independent retailers to brands such as SKIMS, BarkBox, and Supreme.
• Stores on Shopify generated more than $1 billion in sales per day in 2025.
• More than 81 million customers bought from Shopify merchants during Black Friday Cyber Monday 2025.
• Overall, Shopify reports more than $1.8 trillion in sales through its platform since launch.

Compare Shopify to other commerce platforms.

Start selling today

With the internet’s best-converting checkout, AI commerce tools, and deep shipping discounts, Shopify helps businesses give the ultimate shopping experience to customers everywhere.

From self-made TikTok stars to heritage brands, Shopify works for everyone. See plans and pricing.