Shopify 2Q'26: Sustained Miraculous Growth
Shopify’s Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) maintained its almost miraculous 30% growth (FXN) in 2Q’26. This was actually their fifth consecutive quarters of 29-30% GMV (FXN) growth. I say miraculous because never in a million years I would have imagined five years ago that Shopify would grow at such a rate at this scale. Despite internalizing Brian Arthur’s seminal paper “increasing returns to scale”, I am often reminded by tech companies such as Shopify that I have continued to underestimate such a phenomenon.
Given such sustained GMV growth, Shopify's GMV now stands at ~44% of Amazon's estimated retail GMV, up from ~10% back in 2017. In 1Q'26 update, I suggested Shopify could reach half of Amazon's GMV by the end of next year; after this quarter, that trajectory not only looks firmly intact, they may actually get there slightly ahead of that timeline.
On an incremental basis, the story moderated slightly but remains extraordinary. Shopify added ~80% as much GMV YoY as Amazon retail likely did in the quarter, down from the ~95-130% range of the prior few quarters. For context, Shopify CFO cited eMarketer data on the call highlighting Shopify merchants have captured nearly half of all incremental US e-commerce dollars since the start of 2025 while being only ~14% of US e-commerce.
The reason Shopify can match Amazon almost dollar-for-dollar remains the same one flagged in the 3Q’25 update: Shopify’s platform model taps growth reservoirs that are structurally harder for Amazon’s marketplace to reach. In 2Q’26, international GMV grew 37% (Europe +34% FXN vs. North America +28%), offline/point-of-sale GMV grew 32%, and B2B GMV grew 76%. B2B is decelerating as the base scales; it was doubling annually through 3Q’25, then +84% in 4Q’25, +80% in 1Q’26, and now +76% but it remains a meaningful tailwind. Payments penetration hit 68% of GMV (+3 points YoY) with European penetration up more than 350bps YoY.
There were some interesting details around why Shopify’s growth has sustained over such a long period. I will discuss that and more about their margins as well as key takeaways from the earnings call behind the paywall.
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