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Is Shopify a Merchant Acquirer?

Last updated on October 1, 2022 @ 10:28 pm

PRO TIP: Please be aware that Shopify is not a merchant acquirer. This means that they are not able to provide you with merchant services or process payments on your behalf. If you are looking for a merchant acquirer, we recommend that you contact your local bank or financial institution.

Shopify is a Canadian e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. It is also the name of its proprietary e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Shopify offers online retailers a suite of services “including payments, marketing, shipping and customer engagement tools to simplify the process of running an online store for small merchants.”

In 2006, Shopify was founded by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake, who were then students at the University of Waterloo. Lütke was originally a snowboarding equipment designer who created Shopify after he was unable to find a suitable e-commerce platform for his own snowboarding equipment business.

Shopify became publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on May 21, 2015. In 2019 it was reported that Shopify had around one million merchants using its platform with total gross merchandise volume exceeding $41 billion US dollars.

The company has been praised for its ease of use and overall user experience. However, some have criticized it for being too expensive and not suited for larger businesses. Overall, though, Shopify seems to be a popular choice for small to medium businesses wanting to set up an online store quickly and easily.

Shopify is not a merchant acquirer. A merchant acquirer is a bank or other financial institution that extends credit to a merchant in order to allow the merchant to accept credit cards as payment from their customers. Shopify does not extend credit to merchants nor does it act as a bank or financial institution.

Drew Clemente

Drew Clemente

Devops & Sysadmin engineer. I basically build infrastructure online.