On Heels Of Walmart Partnership, Shopify Should Now Hook Up With A Mall Operator

Shopify
SHOP
has been crushing it of late. In the span of a few months, it has dropped a heap load of knowledge on the retail industry, signifying that it expects to be a force for years to come. 

First, there was the launch of Shopify’s new consumer facing mobile app, Shop. Next came the announcement of its integration with Facebook and the new Facebook Shops. Then came word of its new financing plans for merchants and consumers. And, finally, just barely a few weeks ago, news also broke of a new relationship with Walmart
WMT
. 

Shopify is doing for retail what E.T. did for Elliot’s finger — healing wounds for the benefit and mutual love of all involved. Shopify is giving its customers, its partners, and, ultimately, even its end consumers new platforms from which to conduct commerce that are making it harder and harder for the biggest elephant in the room, Amazon
AMZN
, to differentiate itself against. 

There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it — Shopify is solidifying its position as a solid long-term number two digital commerce option relative to Amazon, almost like Target
TGT
has been to Walmart within physical retail for decades.

Yet, even with all that said and all that Shopify has done of late, there is still another partnership on the horizon in which one plus one could again equal three to another huge degree. If Shopify were to partner up with a big mall operator, for example, it would unlock some major synergies on all sides.

First, Shopify could give mall properties what they sorely lack, a credible front end e-commerce experience for product discovery. While Shopify’s Shop mobile app is brand new and still has miles to go in user experience, the premise could easily be taken to malls, as a way to showcase unique product offerings at both a local and national level. 

Shopify could white label its mobile app platform to malls, similar to how it licenses its software to brands now. The platform could then serve as the backbone for any shopping mall’s coordinated front end consumer product experience. Over time, established mall retailers could also plug into this white label Shopify marketplace, show their products online via this new front end, in association with the malls, and then also take advantage of the additional economies of scale that could be triggered, like coordinated pickup, shipping, returns, and marketing at a local mall level.

Second, with mall developers investing heavily in order pickup capabilities, all the brands and products available through this front end could also be sent to staging and fitting areas at local malls for pickup, regardless of whether the brands are available inside any given mall or not. This setup would be ideal for customers that do not want to have products delivered to their homes and/or also want to try products on. Returns could then be made through a built-in consolidated return point at each shopping mall, thereby also reducing costs for any brands that participate.

Third, such an experience would give malls direct visibility by geography into the brands their customers want. Instead of having to pay leasing agents to source up-and-coming brands for physical store leases, the data would be all right there and in front of the mall operator on a daily basis. Shopping malls could then approach leasing differently, knowing what digitally-native brands matter to their customers, especially if their customers are picking products up at the mall and trying them on from certain brands already.

Fourth, Shopify has already been building the cloud commerce tools to help brands get into physical retail quickly and easily. Mall developers and Shopify could build a coordinated program together to help the brands that sell on Shopify get into physical retail when the time is right. With the data mentioned above, an entire rubric of what makes a brand ready for a physical lease at one location could be established, and then the operations could be stood up with a greater probability of success, via Shopify’s integrated operating system, and in a faster manner than what working through legacy means would allow.

I asked a Shopify spokesperson to comment on whether Shopify had any plans like what is mentioned in full above in place already or any plans to implement something along these lines in the future, and Shopify smartly declined to comment.

Because there is something to the argument above. 

What differentiates Shopify from Amazon is that Shopify does not sell its own products. Shopify is, instead, an infrastructural platform for others to conduct commerce. Amazon is that, too, but partnering with Amazon for malls and retailers is always a double-edged sword because Amazon is, itself, also a retailer. 

The technological infrastructure for the future mall operating system, however, remains up for grabs. It is one reason Amazon has been rumored to be interested in J.C. Penney and also likely why rumors sprouted up this week that Amazon may also be interested in Macy’s
M
.

A Shopify partnership with a mall operator would be an imaginative first step in the reimagination of mall-based shopping in a similar vein. Mall operators would gain access to new products, make better decisions, and existing mall-based retailers would likely be interested in showcasing their wares within such a partnership because, unlike Amazon, Shopify is not a competitive retail threat.

It would be a win-win all around and another move, within the physical retail world, Amazon would be hard pressed to touch if Shopify can gain first-mover advantage.