Small business eCommerce platform Shopify’s new marketplace connects businesses for sale with entrepreneurs and offers a feature to let people Gift A Business to an aspiring merchant, according to a report in Small Business Trends on Friday (Nov. 13).
Gift A Business encourages people to buy an established eCommerce shop as a gift for small-business-minded friends or family. Shopify’s Exchange Marketplace portal is a digital bazaar that connects business sellers with up-and-coming entrepreneurs.
The Gift A Business feature kicks off on Monday, Nov. 16 and will be available across the holiday season. Businesses on the exchange can start as low as $50.
“Every person who’s always dreamed of starting a business needed their first push. Maybe it’s a friend who believes in them or a parent who supports their dream,” said Nicole Martins Ferreira, marketing manager of the Exchange Marketplace. “We’re launching Gift A Business to encourage friends and family of potential entrepreneurs to support a person’s desire to pursue something bigger than themselves.”
Shopify’s Exchange Marketplace was launched in 2017 and has an inventory of more than 10,000 Shopify stores across a range of verticals — fashion, health, beauty, home, and more.
Anyone who receives a shop through the program gets a complimentary starter pack with a business certificate and other tools.
Some of the current businesses for sale include a German cosmetics shop with an asking price of $500 and a reported $700 per month profit on monthly sales volume of $2,400. A shaving accessories business bringing in $87 per month on $350 in monthly revenues is asking $2,600 for its shop.
Shopify recently partnered with Affirm to offer customers a buy now, pay later (BNPL) option. Shopify’s BNPL product — Shop Pay Installments — aims to capitalize on the growing popularity of installment credit, which has gained even more traction because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Direct-to-consumer (D2C) is another trend taking off amid the shift to digital shopping amid COVID-19. Since the start of the pandemic in March, channels to purchase consumer-packaged goods (CPG) surged 50.1 percent.
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