"when the Shopify platform makes the same set of selling advantages available to everyone?"
Shopify doesn't make advantages like branding, brand awareness, marketing, market research, etc available. It simply makes setting up an online store more convenient for people do. Convenience != competitive advantage. You can extend this argument to cloud platforms. AWS, and Azure make setting up and scaling a SaaS easier, but it doesn't give you any secret sauce that you need to succeed, like the ability to know what your customer want.
Isn't the point of the article that the Shopify Fulfillment Network will be available to all merchants (that pay for it)?
Most of the Shopify plugins exist to give a store owner an advantage in sales, conversion or marketing. Sure execution counts, external branding counts, but Shopify is a closed platform. You use their plugins and approved apps. And most store owners rely on these plugins to some degree, to help them build brand awareness etc.
Shopify levels the playing field which is great. But if everyone selling Bananas is on the same field, using the same plugins, switching fields could be a great way to differentiate and possibly optimize beyond what Shopify can help you with.
I’d just like to point out that Shopify isn’t a closed platform. Shopify has the concept of a private app that is not in the app store and not approved by Shopify. So a store can either build/hire an agency to build their own unapproved app using a wide variety and growing set of shopify apis. I’ve made a lot of money doing exactly that.
There also are a number of apps who choose not to be in the app store and not give up 20% of their revenue and instead market on their own.
Just a personal anecdote: I've been using Amazon less and less. Most of the goods I buy from them are things that I would otherwise get from a supermarket. Bulk goods mostly, and almost entirely things I'd otherwise get at my local supermarket or Walgreens.
My other purchases are from shopify sites. I trust that what I'm buying is what is advertised far more than I do with Amazon. The influx of crummy knock-off products, poorly made junk, and a lack of quality around product listings on Amazon has completely driven me away from them for things like clothing, shoes, fitness products (equipment, supplements), and anything else that I wouldn't see myself purchasing regularly or that I require a high standard of quality for.
I've been using Amazon more and more, due to bad experiences using smaller sites (not sure how secure they are, my cc got swiped on one of them). And shipping with Amazon is much faster.
I think the ideal use case for Shopify is if you are an existing physical store (i.e. a popular restaurant or tourist attraction) and want to sell branded merchandise (i.e. T-shirts or keychains for Harry's Hotdog Shop) or an existing organization with existing awareness (popular open source software) and want to dabble in merchandising (i.e. sell some branded T-shirts and other schwag).
Some products will always remain predominantly in the category of a commodity. And probably all products will have a commodity category. But I think overall the trend is toward beloved brands for more and more things which were once commodities, like mattresses or reading glasses. And when Brands are sought, retailers/aggregators are just more expensive middlemen.
My beloved brands keep getting eaten up by big brand knock offs like Amazon Basics, or, keep getting bought out by the big brands.
I would love to see this happen with mattresses actually. Buying a mattress is currently ridiculous. Why do I need a guy in a suit showing me around like I'm buying a car?! What's the difference between these mattress brands that I have never heard of. I'm not loyal, because it's a one time purchase every ten years. The brand I purchased last will probably no longer the exist next time.
My latest eye glasses were purchased at the grocery store optical centre, not a mom and pop shop or specialized brand. Much cheaper that way, and good quality. I wouldn't be surprised to see Amazon take over this category as well. Hasn't Walmart already?
Right, but that site is not using Shopify (which was my point). To differentiate and get a competitive advantage - build a better bed bug website, better than the thousands probably already on Shopify, you may need to leave Shopify.
Hmm... what shopping cart does DoMyOwn use? The point I was trying to make is: you can bring in $10m/yr revenue with any shopping cart software. It just depends on marketing/SEO/traffic/conversion...
This could mean over time, more Shopify merchants would be selling overlapping product categories (the ones Amazon has not yet gobbled up yet).
Which would mean that as a Shopify merchant, you would competing with other Shopify merchants (not Amazon).
How do you differentiate, when the Shopify platform makes the same set of selling advantages available to everyone?
You leave Shopify ...