Shopify

You can now spin up a Shopify store with v0 by Vercel, Replit, and Manus AI. Build the design, layout, and copy in your favorite vibe coding tool. When you’re ready to sell, Shopify powers the rest: checkout, payments, taxes, shipping, and more. No coding. Just building through conversation. https://lnkd.in/evarqQs8

$2.9B. That's how much rural merchants on Shopify sold cross-border last year, up 342% in six years across the nine countries we studied. Economists have a name for why this shouldn't happen: the gravity model. A business's pull should weaken with distance. But ecommerce rewrote the rules. The average rural order now travels 1,799 km, nearly matching the 1,870 km urban average. And European rural merchants are scaling cross-border faster than anywhere else: +1,571% in Germany, +1,844% in Spain, +1,114% in France. What changed? The cost of going global collapsed. Payments clear in local currencies. Shipping tools automate customs paperwork. AI drafts and translates product descriptions into six languages. Capital flows based on sales velocity, not proximity to a lender. Small towns always had lower overhead, and plenty of ambition. What they lacked was reach. Not anymore. Entrepreneurship can happen everywhere. https://lnkd.in/ewjduj7a

U.S. consumers spent May prepping for the outdoors and time at home. We pulled month-over-month sales from thousands of Shopify merchants to see what consumers are reaching for. Here are the trends worth noting: → Camping season kicked off, with handheld two-way radios (+2,012%), tunnel tents (+263%), and air mattresses (+53%) all up. → Bedding had a breakout month. Pillowcases jumped 1,000%, followed by flat sheets (+991%), fitted sheets (+787%), and weighted blankets (+635%). → Water sports picked up speed. Wingfoil foils (+538%), folding kayaks (+148%), and wakeboards (+133%) all saw strong growth. Cover ups (+1,103%), classic bikinis (+420%), and swim trunks (+348%) were moving too. → Personal care got a refresh with hair serums (+577%), hair masks (+532%), bath bombs (+404%), and body butters (+374%) trending upward. Whether the destination was a campsite or a night in, May spending didn't slow down.

Your Shopify store now connects to Perplexity Computer. Do market research, generate product images, and design a theme in parallel. Install the connector → https://lnkd.in/eJ5jVVgN

Universal Commerce Protocol is now live for all merchants. Shopping is moving into agents, apps, and platforms across the web. And now, with a single integration, developers building those experiences can access the full Shopify Catalog. Teach your agents to search billions of products, create carts, and check out. Start building → shopify.dev/agents

The fastest-growing area of commerce isn't one category. It's thousands of new ones being created by entrepreneurs. As the barriers to starting a business collapse, founders are turning specific obsessions into entire markets. Here's what the data shows: → Nearly 55% of Shopify sales come from product categories outside the top 100. The mainstream is now the minority. → One product is enough to start. Nearly 54% of new Shopify stores in 2025 launched in a specialized category, and 41% started with a single product. → AI is a matchmaker for specialized products and the people who want them. 71% of AI-attributed orders in 2025 were for products outside the mainstream. Niche no longer means limited. The most specific ideas have the most room to grow. https://lnkd.in/e9-Xifty

Shopify merchants, you can now manage your store inside ChatGPT or Claude. Get insights, add products, and look up orders, all without leaving the chat. Connect to ChatGPT → https://lnkd.in/eUsQiENu Connect to Claude → https://lnkd.in/eGGcHMZu

Outdoor living was top of mind for U.S. consumers in April. We looked at month-over-month sales from thousands of Shopify merchants to see what was trending. Here’s what stood out: → Yard maintenance saw strong growth, with wagons jumping 4,744%. Grass edgers (+697%), sun shades (+254%), plant cages (+242%), and garden hoses (+232%) all saw triple digit increases. → Outdoor pet products surged, led by dog houses (+1,910%), dog kennels and runs (+412%), stuffed toys (+163%), and cooling beds (+33%). → Pool season officially started, with rash guards and swim shirts (+671%), pool maintenance kits (+163%), and water slides (+112%) all in demand. → Golf season teed off too. Club shafts are up 197%, followed by club parts and accessories (+86%), putting mats (+60%), gloves (+37%), and swing trainers (+24%). If April is any indication, summer demand is already building.

Business owners are finding financial control in something a 9-5 can't give them: ownership. We partnered with The Harris Poll to survey business owners across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and Spain. One finding stood out: founders aren't just optimistic about the choice they made, they feel in control of it. → In every market surveyed, business owners were more likely to say entrepreneurship feels more financially secure than a traditional job. In the U.S., the margin was roughly 2 to 1 (39% vs. 18%). → In 4 of 5 markets, respondents said a traditional job requires more effort than running a business. In the U.S., nearly twice as many said so (46% vs. 24%). → Across all 5 markets, 61 to 69% of founders said starting a business felt like moving toward something they wanted, not away from something unstable. → In the U.S., 86% of entrepreneurs say ecommerce platforms have made it easier to start a business than a decade ago, and 67% say AI tools are making entrepreneurship more accessible. Most founders would make the same choice again. Not because it's easy. Because it's theirs. https://lnkd.in/ecPPkMtN