Shopify Launches a Shipping Platform in Europe with Shippo as its Partner

Supply Chain

Mar 10

Shippo scored a major win in the shipping label wars with Stamps . com this week with the launch of its Shippo for Platforms product, announcing Shopify Europe as its first customer.

Shopify plans to use the service to power the back-end technology of its label printing and tracking solution in Europe, in particular the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Germany.

In case you’re curious what Shopify Shipping is, it’s a built-in solution for Shopify to get shipping rates, print labels, and track shipments.

The crown jewel of this is the label, because this is the primary source of revenue for companies like Stamps, Pitney Bowes, and Shippo.

This partnership is a win for both parties. Shippo gets exclusivity on a major market with a leading platform.

Shopify gets a shipping solution that allows its smaller merchants to print labels easily. This same technology will also likely power the tracking behind the scenes of the Shopify Shop App in the future, although I wasn’t able to confirm this.

As I have mentioned on here previously, Shopify is investing significantly in expanding its European business and Shipping is a missing component.

The bigger question in my mind — does this mean that Shippo will be used in North America in the future to expand the set of carriers available and tracked in Shopify? I’m sure this was part of the consideration in doing this partnership.

Also on my mind -- how did Stamps get caught so flat-footed here? Metapack is the crown jewel in the company's European strategy, I'm guessing it is not really in a position to be "API-first" enough to really even bid seriously on the offering.

The other competitor Pitney Bowes - who has taken care of shipping labels for platforms like eBay and Paypal for many years would seem to be the other choice, but the % of European revenue there is likely small.

It almost goes to show you -- sometimes you win just by "showing up."

shipposhopifystampsshippinglabels

Rick Watson

Rick Watson founded RMW Commerce Consulting after spending 20+ years as a technology entrepreneur and operator exclusively in the eCommerce industry with companies like ChannelAdvisor, BarnesandNoble.com, Merchantry, and Pitney Bowes.

Watson’s work today is centered on supporting investors and management teams incubating and growing direct-to-consumer businesses. Most recently, in partnership with WHP Global, Rick was a critical resource in architecting the WHP+ platform, a new turnkey direct to consumer digital e-commerce platform that powers AnneKlein.com and JosephAbboud.com.

Watson also hosts a weekly podcast, Watson Weekly, where he shares an unbiased, unfiltered expert take on the retail sector’s biggest players.

In the past year alone, Rick has spoken at many in-person and virtual events as well as podcasts on topics ranging from retail/ecom to supply chain/logistics and even digital grocery including CommerceNext IRL, ASCM Connect, and Retail Innovation Conference.

https://www.rmwcommerce.com/

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