On May 8, 2018, Satish Kanwar, VP& GM Channels at Shopify announced that Shopify would be opening up a retail location in Los Angeles, CA to support thousands of merchants on the platform. A lot of us were taken by surprise. A technology company, opening a brick and mortar retail store to support merchants. It made me think the vision of Shopify is bigger than commerce.
Then five months later, on October 11, 2018, Shopify opened its first and only (for now) store in ROW DTLA, between the arts district and the industrial district in Los Angeles, CA.
Clicks to Bricks
I visited the store over the weekend, and parking was surprisingly easy. Two-hour free parking at the garage near the store on weekends (1 hr validation during weekdays). As one would hope or expect, there were several food trucks there at ROW DTLA during my visit on Sunday.
As soon as I entered, I was greeted by a Store Associate. He mentioned that he has been training for the last three months or so and was excited to be working at the store. He knew the product and also talked about Shopify Plus.Shopify has two product variants for their e-commerce platform (Shopify and Shopify Plus). Shopify is for SMB (Small and Medium Businesses), and Shopify Plus is for the enterprise merchants or if you need additional customization. This store is more for Shopify merchants. Shopify Plus merchants have their own Customer Success Managers.
@Shopify Retail Location Store in Los Angeles, CA @Tobi Awesome. pic.twitter.com/3yhww7Bndy
— DCKAP (@DCKAP) October 28, 2018
Learn, experiment, and build with Shopify
The guru appointments are free. Shopify also has regular classes (similar to Apple), and the sessions have a good audience. They also host a bunch of events at their retail store. The Road to Complexcon 2018 was held on October 30, 2018, and you can find other events on their schedule here.
“We’ve moved in [to Los Angeles] to help you move up” is the branding of Shopify when you visit the store and the store site.If you are a merchant running a Shopify platform or considering moving to Shopify, I highly recommend that you book an appointment with a Shopify guru and visit the store. It is free and will help you with your platform decision. You can also learn how to drive revenue to your store.
