About Shopify:

Shopify is a Canada-based multinational e-commerce company that provides support for its
customer to start their business. It was founded back in 2004 by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand,
and Scott Lake after they attempted to open an online store for snowboarding equipment name
Snowdevil. However, after they were dissatisfied with the existing complicated and expensive e-
commerce options, the owners of Snowdevil launched Shopify in June 2006, headquartered in
Ottawa, Ontario. According to Carney (2020), Shopify is a dedicated eCommerce website
builder and it helps people build their very own online store”. Shopify helps people to create
their shop by handling everything from marketing and payments to checkout and shipping.
Wikipedia (2021) reported that Shopify has more than 1,000,000 businesses currently in about
175 countries as of January 2021, but according to Builtwith (2021), more than 3.6 million
online stores run on Shopify and they have more than 5000 staffs working. According to
Singleton (2021), over $200 Bn has been generated by businesses using the Shopify platform.
With more than 58 million visits in 2020, the average Shopify conversion rate is 1.6%. Also, its
partnership with TikTok has opened the door for over 1 million sellers (WebsiteBuilder, 2021).
As of July 2019, Shopify’s net worth is $6.17 billion (Csiszar, 2020). Based on our research we
are focusing on 5 sectors where Shopify excels and has room for improvements to become one of
the best e-commerce platforms.

1. Developing diversity and equity within the host organization:

Diversity refers to the differences that the individuals of the organization have among themselves
(Dyson, n.d.). According to Nelson (2020) equity refers to the contribution (Time, Creativity,
and Experience) that all the employees input to the company and receive equal outcomes (Pay,
Award and Benefits) in return. Nelson (2020) stated that diversity is surrounded by a lot of
variations among the employees, including culture, gender, age, ability, religion, personality,
social status, and sexual orientation. According to Nelson (2020), Cultural differences contribute
a great deal to the diversity of the workforce, but other forms of diversity are important as well.
Nelson (2020) also stated that organizations need to be open to hiring individuals from many
different countries so that the organizations become as diverse as the communities in which they

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operate. Dhillon (2018) indicated that diverse people inside the company increase the innovation
and creativity of the company.
Shopify believes that effective organizational culture can be created by involving a diversity of
people in work. Nelson (2020) said that by the year 2020, the workforce will be more culturally
diverse, more female, and older than ever. However, Shopify has been criticized for its lack of
diversity based on gender and racial differences. It has been seen that Shopify used to give more
priority to White and Male people. Male people and people with white skin tone get more
facilities and benefits than female and black people. According to Voidonicolas (2021),
Shopify’s small business loan applications which are submitted by women are found frequently
rejected. It is almost 31% less than the man-owned businesses. Voidonicolas (2021) also said
that Black and Latin founders represented just 2.6% of the total $87.3 billion in venture capital
funding and this statistic is more horrible for the black women as they represent only 0.64% of
the total capital funding. However, in percentage terms, women now hold 9.44% of these
important jobs compared to 9.02% a year ago in Canada (Nelson 2020).
To develop diversity inside the organization, few steps can be followed. For example; it has been
said whatever gets the team’s focus, does get more time and attention (Nelson, 2020). Nelson
(2020) also stated that managers need to motivate diverse work groups must communicate with
employees who have different values and language skills. By measuring the organization’s
diversity and looking at it objectively, it helps to improve the overall diversity levels by putting
more focus on the actions required to improve them (Miller, 2016). Miller (2016) also stated that
by paying attention to organizational culture, by providing proper diversity training, and by
providing more facilities for the employees to attract the broader pool of diverse candidates;
diversity and equity can be developed.
2. Possible areas for technology innovation and technology integration:

Using the latest innovations in eCommerce can become the key difference between the company
and rivals; also, it helps to increase the brand value of the company. Having an eCommerce
platform can help us to experiment, adapt and implement new technology. Shopify is Canada’s
one of the most technologically advanced companies. Shopify uses 79 technology products and
services including HTML5, Google Analytics, and jQuery (Crunchbase, 2021). Shopify is
actively using 143 technologies for its website and these include Viewport Meta, IPhone /
Mobile Compatible, and Apple Mobile Web Clips Icon (Builtwith, 2021). However, there are

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few areas where Shopify is lacking behind and they can use more technological advancements to
improve their services; such as the Shopify payment system, lack of control over the checkout
system, Disadvantages in the Shopify app.
Shopify can add more technological advancements to their app to improve their service. Firstly
they can work over their payment system. According to Shackleton (2017), Apple Pay will give
customers a seamless, speedy checkout experience that makes buying from your store a joy, and
in the case of Shopify, they have Apple pay in all their stores. However, not all customers are
comfortable with Apple Services and they prefer to use other payment options. Although Shopify
has a very convenient checkout system unless someone uses Shopify Payment Service, they have
to pay Shopify's enforced transaction fee (Carney, 2021). Shopify should use technological
innovation to change the system and make things easier for the customers. Secondly, they have a
lack of control over their checkout process. According to Rogers (2019), The Shopify checkout
is very locked down, which again is both a good thing and a bad thing as there are very rarely
issues in this area, whereas it’s common with other platforms. However, this creates limitations
for the retail customers as not everyone likes unwanted texts and emails. Shopify can improve
this by adding new features through which they can ignore these things. Thirdly, Shopify app is
not capable of pushing changes across the stores; a lot of things (App Management, Promotion
Management) are still manually operated and very time consuming (Rogers, 2019). Also when
the customers try to use the Shopify platform to create their own online store and try to use
different themes, the content doesn’t automatically reformat. The customers need provide all the
information again (Carney, April 07, 2021). Shopify should add more technological integration
to solve these issues so that the customers find the app more convenient and time-saving.
3. Addressing issues of stress and wellbeing within the organization:

Stress is something that creates an impact on an individual’s physical and psychological health
and creates physical, mental, and emotional strain in his mind (Nelson, 2020). Workplace stress
can happen for the demand and pressure from both inside and outside the workplace and it
threatens an individual’s well-being (Nelson, 2020). According to Nelson (2020) when an
employee is unable to match his skills and resources (time, equipment, and knowledge) with the
demand of the company, the workplace becomes stressful. When there is a deadline and the
employee is unable to finish the work in the time that creates stress in his mind. When stress lasts
for a big amount of time, it becomes for the company’s health and productivity. According to

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Nelson (2020) Increasing levels of work stress seem to be a global concern now. According to
Hatice (2002), workplace stress is an important issue for the organization itself because it
impacts the financial condition of the company. However not all stress is negative, stress can
also be positive (Nelson 2020). Nelson (2020) stated that “Positive stress can bring good
performance and health benefits”. Kumar (2019) said that “The right amount of stress can help
you be more productive in some cases, and without any stress at all, some tasks would be hard to
focus on”. However, In Shopify, there are a lot of sources of stress for the employees. According
to Shopify Review (2021), there are few sources of stress that employees of Shopify face in their
regular work such as; harsh deadlines, high turnover rate, non-flexible working hours (overtime
without pay).
If Shopify wants to reduce their work stress they might follow few steps. Firstly, according to
Nelson (2020) Fewer people doing the same amount (or more) of work creates time pressure, a
leading cause of stress often associated with work overload. In case of improving the stress
created due to harsh deadlines, they can provide more time for the staff or they might involve
more staffs in the work so that the employees don’t feel that they are getting pressurized. Phillips
(2017) said that someone should tell his team to contribute more before he actually needs them
so that the team gets to know the importance of the work and the work will become more
flexible. Secondly, if the employees are stressed due to the high turnover rate, the manager can
make them understand the current situation of the company, be transparent to them, can ask for
feedback for their experience, and keep the floor open for criticism (Pope, 2019). Pope (2019)
also said that the best way to keep employees from quitting the job is to keep them happy at
work. Their happiness is the biggest motivation for them to stay in the job. Thirdly, it has been
seen that employees were complaining about their non-flexible working hours, where they have
to work more on regular days without paying and also work on the weekends on a rotation basis
due to work pressure (Shopify Review, 2021). According to Dolman (2019) employers are
required to pay for overtime if overtime is worked and the employee is eligible. Shopify can use
these policies to resolve their overtime issues. They should treat overtime as an exception, not a
regular practice, they can also try to use flexible work schedules to reduce overtime and they can
establish an official overtime policy so that the staff doesn’t get stressed due to this (Campbell,
2019).
4. Developing a positive organizational culture:

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Organizational culture is often described as steady, shared, noticeable patterns of behavior that
differentiate between groups (Nelson, 2020). Shopify has a director of culture, who’s prime
responsibility is to be a bridge between management and rest of the organization (Nelson, 2020).
In her interview with “Ways we work”, Konval Martin; director of culture at Shopify mentioned
that they define culture as a sum of all the individuals associated with Shopify as everyone plays
a major role in impacting the culture. (Matin, 2020)
Shopify has a full-fledged cultural team, which is a collaboration of 4 teams with different
responsibilities. The graphics designers work with visuals throughout the office and the office
design itself. The internal communications team which itself has 2 sub-teams, works on
delivering any message while keeping employee’s right, feelings in mind. Lastly, the culture
specialists, who play an exciting role of being the eyes and ears on the ground for the
organization, they onboard new hires every two weeks and conduct town hall, work with coaches
and leads to find out the areas of improvement.
Shopify developed a positive culture by adapting to “default to open” where they only put an
embargo on sharing things that someone is legally restricted to do so. This helped to grow a
culture where everyone is welcome to share any ideas they come up with, which created more
mid-level leadership within the organization. According to Matin (2020), Shopify loves to
conduct experiments on new and realistic situations to develop better strategies for serving their
merchants (Matin, 2020).
The way Shopify built its culture started with hiring the best people for the position (Robins,
2014). Shopify is trying to implement “adaptive culture”, which allows employees to take risk by
enhancing their confidence (Nelson, 2020). As great minds together do great things, Shopify also
works on employee satisfaction by providing meaning and encouraging positivity. They do not
change their culture of a fun-loving office as they grow big. Rather they embrace a new and
enhanced way of having a diverse organizational culture among them.
5. Developing an effective communication framework for this organization:
Shopify introduced Timeline in 2016, an internal communication tool to providing users
frameworks to link production with sales aspects (Timeline, 2020), which allowed both
employees and merchants to comment, post, share, and edit information, providing a sense of
two and multi-directional communication. There are also drawbacks of digital communication.
Consumers are more likely to buy a product when they have seen it in person (Perizzini, 2021).

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Yet roughly 3.5 trillion USD was spent on online purchases in 2020. The goal is to improve
response time for the customers, managing multiple customer channels, and improving customer
loyalty. It is also hard to read the expression of the message and hence can be diverted to a
completely different context (Nelson, 2020). Furthermore, messages go unread or ignored,
causing a hinder in communication.
Shopify is currently expanding communication through opening physical locations by having a
store in LA. It helps to reach and provide better services to retailers. Face to face communication
has the highest information richness (Nelson, 2020). Running side by side with the online
platform to provide the essential commodity to the retailers which cannot be replicated online
(Shopify Physical Store, n.d.). This will enable two-way communication, which is an interactive
form of communication in which there is an exchange of ideas, feelings, or both (Nelson, 2020).
An online framework of communication is still the better path for Shopify, but to have more
physical stores side by side is going to provide Shopify the essence of trust and scope of
development in terms of two way communication.
Recommendation:
Based on the challenges that Shopify is facing, we are offering some recommendations. While
they are praised for having a wonderful work culture they are also criticized for lack of diversity,
having white and male preferences. Shopify should focus on having a diverse workforce based
on gender and racial differences. Over the years Shopify has grown to be one of the big names in
the eCommerce sector and they need to invest more in technological advancements in areas such
as app management, a lot of things are manually operated and time-consuming. Also, theme
changing doesn’t reformat the store information while creating the store. They need to add more
technological advancement in this sector. After all, the convenience of the customer can make a
huge difference if we consider the scale of business Shopify has grown to be. There will always
be workplace stress in a challenging business era. But Shopify already has a fully operational
cultural team that caters healthy culture within the organization with a vision to have employee
satisfaction and diversified culture. They have their traditional activities with employees that
help reducing stress and create bonding, which they should continue to organize even if they
grow much bigger. And lastly, Shopify should think about opening more physical stores, through
which they can engage in face-to-face communication with the retailers. This will serve as an act
of goodwill and trust in Shopify’s integrated online business framework.

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Reference:

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