We are all aware that the e-commerce sector is booming right now and its advancement has increased ever since the pandemic because people have become habitual to the experience of shopping online which is much more convenient compared to spending hours on foot going from one shop to another or walking endlessly in a mall which is not everyone’s cup of tea. Since the e-commerce market is growing rapidly, we know that startups that are focusing on providing services for e-commerce merchants is also growing fast.
One of these startups is the e-commerce software startup named Shop Circle which announced that they have raised $120 million and this will be helped in order to provide support for online merchants that want to run their own e-commerce stores. As per a Forbes’ report, “Shop Circle provides budding e-commerce brands the tools they need to start, grow and sustain their businesses, such as online store design and inventory management. This raise—led by 645 Ventures and 3VC—brings the startup’s total funding to $140 million. The cofounders say the two-year-old startup has been profitable for 11 months, but declined to comment on revenue or valuation”.
Cartechini says “The number of software [tools] utilized by e-commerce brands went up approximately five times over the last five years,” and adds that “We wanted to centralize everything under one brand, which is Shop Circle.” “The number of brands has increased massively, so the competition also increased,” “In order to become appealing for their customers, brands have to be superior in terms of product, in terms of conversion, and last but not least, retention.”
To know exactly what Shop Circle does, Forbes says that it “functions as a “suite” of tools all under one umbrella, including everything from referral programs to restock alerts to a mobile app builder. Shop Circle solely works with Shopify sellers and offers merchants 37 different tools to build their businesses on Shopify”. Basically, just like Shopify provides plugins for its merchants to be added to their own stores, Shop Circle does the same but it might be building tools that Shopify hasn’t already which is a tricky business and not a defensible one.
