TL;DR: As Amazon’s economics worsen for sellers, Shopify is emerging as the strongest platform for brand-owned e-commerce. Shopify merchants keep 95%+ of revenue, own their customer data, and can build real brand equity. Brands moving to Shopify need a fulfillment partner that integrates natively and supports multi-channel operations.
I wrote recently about what’s happening on Amazon. The short version: fees are taking 50-60% of seller revenue, new registrations hit a decade low, and the marketplace is consolidating around Chinese manufacturers and big brands willing to outspend everyone else on ads.
That piece was about the problem. This one is about where I think the opportunity is going.
My bet is on Shopify.
The Amazon advantage is gone
For years, the argument for selling on Amazon was simple: that’s where the customers are. You didn’t need to build a brand. You didn’t need a marketing funnel. You just needed to show up, optimize your listing, and ride the traffic.
That advantage attracted a generation of resourceful entrepreneurs who figured out how to win the Amazon game. They mastered keyword optimization, PPC strategy, review velocity, and listing photography. For a while, knowing the playbook gave you a real edge.
That edge is gone. AI has leveled it.
Chinese manufacturers and large brands who were historically slow to adopt marketplace best practices now have access to the same tools. They can generate optimized listings, run sophisticated ad campaigns, and match the quality of content that used to take specialized knowledge to produce. The optimization playbook that once separated the scrappy operators from the rest is now table stakes.
What’s left is a marketplace where 57% of million-dollar sellers are Chinese, ad spend determines visibility, and customers see the same products recycled across the first page of every search. Amazon is no longer a platform for product innovation in the way it was. It’s becoming a digital shelf where the biggest spenders get the best placement.
Customers want something different
Here’s the shift that matters most. In a world saturated with optimized, algorithmic commerce, customers are starting to look for authenticity. They want to know who made the product, why it exists, and what the brand actually stands for.
This is not a vibe. There’s data behind it. Future Commerce surveyed U.S. shoppers during the 2025 holiday season and found that when AI recommends a product, 77% of shoppers leave the platform to buy on the brand’s own site. Think about what that means. The discovery might happen through AI, but the purchase happens where the brand can tell its story.
Amazon doesn’t let you tell a story. It lets you fill out a template.
AI is the great democratizer
The old argument against building your own store was that it’s hard and expensive. You need a website, a marketing funnel, email automation, ad creative, SEO, social content. For a small brand, that was intimidating.
AI has changed the math on all of it.
Building a marketing funnel that used to take a team and six figures now takes one person and the right tools. Email sequences, ad copy, product photography, landing page optimization, even customer service. The barriers that kept brands dependent on marketplaces are falling fast.
And discovery is changing just as quickly. When Google’s AI results, ChatGPT shopping, and tools like Perplexity can surface your product based on what it actually is rather than how much you spent on ads, the marketplace toll booth loses its power. Brands with genuine differentiation and authentic stories have a path to customers that doesn’t run through Amazon.
Shopify is positioned to capture this
Look at the numbers. Shopify processed $74.75 billion in GMV in Q1 2025 alone, up 23% year over year. Seven consecutive quarters of GMV growth exceeding 20%. Revenue on pace to pass $12 billion in 2026. The platform just crossed $1 trillion in cumulative GMV.
But the numbers only tell part of the story. What makes Shopify the winner in this environment is what they let brands do that Amazon doesn’t: own the relationship.
On Shopify, you control the customer data. You control the brand experience. You control the pricing, the packaging, the follow-up, the story. You’re building equity in your own business, not renting shelf space on someone else’s platform.
Shopify’s take rate is roughly 3% of merchant sales. Amazon takes 50-60%. That gap is the entire thesis.
This is where we see it from the warehouse floor
We work with 150+ brands at Thrive, and the pattern is clear. The brands growing fastest right now are the ones investing in their Shopify presence and treating Amazon as a defensive channel. Hold your rankings, protect your position, but put growth capital where you own the customer.
The brands that are struggling are the ones still all-in on Amazon, watching their margins compress while trying to outspend Chinese competitors on ads. (The fee math is brutal — I broke it down in Amazon’s Chin Is Out.)
This isn’t about abandoning Amazon. You can’t ignore a channel that big. But the brands that will win the next five years are the ones building direct relationships with their customers through their own stores, using AI to make that easier and more affordable than ever.
My take
Ecommerce is about to get a lot more interesting. The marketplace era rewarded scale, optimization, and ad spend. The next era is going to reward authenticity, creativity, and brand building. That’s Shopify’s world.
Amazon will be fine as a company. They make more money from AWS and advertising than they do from commerce. But for brands trying to build something durable, the writing is on the wall. The platform that once made it easy to find customers is now making it expensive, and the alternatives have never been better.
If I’m placing a bet on where ecommerce is headed, I’m placing it on the platform that lets brands be brands. That’s Shopify.
Eric Lobdell is the founder of Thrive 3PL, a Houston-based fulfillment company working with 150+ e-commerce brands. He previously built Lonestar Trade, a multi-channel Amazon resale business, before pivoting to fulfillment.