In Episode 83 of Localogy’s This Week in Local podcast, my co-host Mike Boland and I discuss the rapid evolution of retail media from the purview of brands into a channel that small businesses can access to acquire new customers. The catalyst for this discussion was a deal between eCommerce platform Shopify and big box retailer Target that Mike wrote about recently on Localogy Insider.
The deal gives Shopify merchants the opportunity for “amplification” on Target.com.
My reaction was this is just the sort of thing Shopify merchants need, since many of them as small and struggle to break through. Shopify is a platform for building online stores. It is not a source of distribution. And that is a big part of why this deal is so important, as Mike notes. It addresses a glaring need.
“This is a welcome development for small merchants that may not be adept at SEO and traffic building,” Mike said on the episode “It gives them a little bit more distribution.”
So the deal, as with most deals, benefits both sides. Shopify merchants get more distribution. Mike sees this as an acquisition and retention play for Shopify (which has done a similar deal with Walmart). The deal helps Target beef up its third-party seller program to put at least a dent in Amazon’s dominance in that space.
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