I thought it was gonna be Target, turns out it might be Faire.
(If you’re lost already: it’s a tiny rumor, but a rumor nonetheless, that Shopify might acquire Faire. So yeah, here I go fueling the fire 🔥.)
Ecommerce Times and Online Store News both reported the talks as “advanced.” Faire’s GMV dropped from $5.1 billion in 2023 to $4.2 billion annualized this year, and it cut headcount by 11 percent in January.
Shopify expanding its reach and revenue by buying into brick and mortar makes lots of sense to me.
But then again, I also thought it made sense for them to buy into fulfillment/3PL (RIP Deliverr and 6 River). And imports (RIP Oberlo). And forecasting (RIP Stocky). And inventory management (RIP ChannelApe). And wholesale (RIP Handshake, but… hello Faire?!).
Maybe Shopify got some rad stuff from those acquisitions — and many others — before the platforms were shut down. Talent? Proprietary business logic?? Customers??? But the products themselves were deemed a misfit in the long run. I think their more recent acquisitions around AI talent have clearly made an impact and seem to have stuck, for the most part.
Which is why the Faire thing is confusing. It matches the pattern of Shopify’s unsuccessful acquisitions way more than it matches the successful ones.
If this works, I’m stoked. Because I love specialty retail. I love supporting merchants and tastemakers. And I believe those who can build — and can afford to build — around complex problems (like physical commerce) and distill that complexity into simple and delightful solutions (as Shopify does) are a powerful force for the betterment of consumption. And as I figure it, better consumption is probably a good thing for humanity.
There’s a voice in my head that’s bugging at me right now though. Every time I’ve seen Shopify start to dig into anything that requires deep, relationship-level operational data — supplier terms, lead times, retailer requirements — they bail out. I think it’s because those things don’t compound with their core platform.
From what I can see in the acquisition rearview mirror, everything Shopify has kept alive serves its storefronts. Everything Shopify has killed held heavy records about somebody else — suppliers, warehouses, retailer requirements.
But Faire? Faire is both of those things stapled together. Product discovery is a channel, and Shopify keeps channels. But the retailer and supplier stuff underneath it — terms, lead times, who ships when, who gets extended credit — is the other bit. You know, the bit that they, erm, kill.
So I don’t think Shopify buys Faire and keeps the second half. Because I’ve never once seen them keep the second half, no matter how much it would have helped merchants and their customers.
I hope I’m wrong, though, because specialty retail deserves somebody who wants the second half!
