How is Shopify accelerating enterprise onboarding, and what's next for growing GMV from $100M+ merchants?

Larger merchants are increasingly choosing Shopify due to its speed to market, all-in-one platform, innovation velocity, and leadership in Agentic Commerce, viewing it as their 'final migration.' Shopify is seeing success in cross-selling unified commerce solutions (online, POS, B2B, Payments) to large brands, deepening their integration with the platform. “Larger merchants are now choosing Shopify at a higher clip. They see that there is enormous and often invisible complexity. I think the fact that speed to market, this all-in-one platform, this velocity of innovation, but also, I think our pole position on Agentic Commerce there's no custom stack or legacy platform can match that.”

Is there an upper bound on GMV per merchant, or are there business models not a fit for Shopify over the long term?

There is no upper bound on GMV per merchant; Shopify serves businesses from startups to those generating billions. For business models that may not be a full fit initially (e.g., marketplaces), Shopify offers components like Shop Pay to establish a relationship and then expands services. The international market remains significantly underpenetrated, offering substantial growth opportunities. “I don't think it's a GMV issue. We have merchants that are doing billions of dollars with a very, very small team. So there's no upper bound in terms of GMV. Complexity, I think we've gotten really good at. There is something for everyone now, whether that's headless or it's a commerce component.”

How often is Shopify Catalog a primary driver of demand generation for new merchants, and how does the current AI-driven builder economy compare to the COVID-era entrepreneurship boom?

Shopify Catalog drives 2x higher conversion than general search, and AI search conversion is 80% higher than traditional organic search. AI-driven traffic and orders are up 3x year-over-year, with new buyer orders 2x higher. Sidekick is making entrepreneurship more accessible, helping new merchants achieve early milestones faster, such as an 8% increase in reaching 5 orders within 15 days. “I mean if you just look at conversion of our catalog -- Shopify catalog versus general search conversion is 2x. I mean, so I'm comparing catalog to just scraping a bunch of products. So that's a 2x increase.”

SHOP

Shopify (SHOP) Q2 FY26 earnings call: guidance and Q&A

Q: How does Shopify plan to monetize the value created by AI, or is the intent still to open doors for merchant acquisition?

Shopify's monetization strategy remains consistent: unlock more places for merchants to sell, and earn on those sales through existing economics. Agentic GMV directly translates to more Shopify revenue without new fees. AI disproportionately benefits Shopify's core merchant base (smaller, specialized brands), and as they grow, Shopify grows with them. “We unlock more places for our merchants to sell. And when we earn on those sales the way we always have. We think -- you've seen this, of course, but the Agentic transactions carried the exact economics of an online store transaction. There's no new fees. There's no separate pricing. But more agenetic GMV, it means more Shopify revenue, and that's the model and it's been working really well from this 2 decades.”

Earnings call· Jun 2026 (Q2 FY26)· Information Technology· Aug 5, 2026

Source: earnings call transcript

Executive summary

Shopify Q2 FY26 — Strong GMV Growth and AI-Driven Merchant Success

Shopify delivered another exceptional quarter, driven by robust GMV growth and strong financial performance. The company's strategic focus on AI-powered tools like Catalog and Sidekick is enhancing merchant success and expanding its addressable market, positioning Shopify as a critical infrastructure provider in the evolving agentic era of commerce.

Highlights

GMV increased 32% to $116 billion, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of GMV growth above 30%.
Revenue grew 34% to $3.6 billion, surpassing expectations.
Free cash flow margin was 18%, exceeding outlook and representing approximately 1.5 points of year-over-year margin expansion.
AI-driven traffic and orders to Shopify stores tripled year-over-year in Q2.
Shop Pay GMV grew 53% year-over-year, surpassing $400 billion in lifetime accelerated GMV.

Guidance & targets

Category	Target	Timeline	Confidence
Revenue growth	low 30s year-over-year high materiality	Q3 · FY26	High
Gross profit dollars growth	mid- to high 20s medium materiality	Q3 · FY26	High
Operating expenses as % of revenue	33% to 34% of revenue medium materiality	Q3 · FY26	High
Free cash flow margin	high teens to low 20s high materiality	Q3 · FY26	High

Segment performance

Segment	Revenue	YoY	QoQ	Margin
North America GMV growth.	—	28%	—	—
Europe GMV growth on a constant currency basis.	—	34%	—	—
Offline GMV growth year-over-year.	—	32%	—	—
B2B GMV growth.	—	76%	—	—
International GMV growth in the quarter.	—	37%	—	—

SHOP operating KPIs by quarter

SHOP operating KPIs stated on its earnings calls, by fiscal quarter
KPI	Dec 2024 Q4 FY24	Sep 2025 Q3 FY25	Change vs prior quarter
Employees	<8,100 As of December 31, 2024, our headcount was just under 8,100 employees, down from approximately 8,300 at the end of 2023. Source: earnings call transcript	~8,100 But all the time, it's the roughly 8,100 people at Shopify who're relentlessly merchant-obsessed showing up every day to help them win. Source: earnings call transcript	—

Operating figures the company stated on at least two of the calls shown, checked against each call's transcript. Click a figure to read the sentence. A dash means it was not stated that quarter.

Product announcements

Product	Type	Timeline
Everywhere Edition	launch	—
Shopify Payments in UAE	expansion	Q2 FY26
Local payment methods in Mexico	expansion	Q2 FY26
Managed Markets	expansion	Q2 FY26
Native B2B capabilities	expansion	Q2 FY26

Deals & partnerships

OpenAI, Google, Meta, Microsoft Strategic partnerships to open more front doors for commerce and embed commerce into their applications using Shopify primitives.

Some of the largest technology companies have chosen to partner with Shopify to open more front doors for commerce, allowing merchants to sell in new surface areas.

Arhaus Expanded relationship to include offline business and Shopify Payments, moving beyond online e-commerce to a unified commerce platform.

Arhaus started with Shopify online and is now expanding into offline, B2B, and Shopify Payments, leveraging Shopify's unified commerce offering.

Guess, Fred Segal, Aritzia Company, Avon, e.l.f. Cosmetics, Claire's, Burton, Suit Supply Large and iconic brands choosing Shopify to modernize their commerce operations and leverage its platform.

Brands like Guess, Fred Segal, Avon, e.l.f. Cosmetics, Claire's, Burton, and Suit Supply have either chosen Shopify or are now live on the platform.

What to watch in Q3 FY26

AI-driven traffic and orders growth

next quarter

Current Tripled YoY in Q2

Target Continued strong growth, sustained disproportionate benefit to long-tail merchants

Why it matters

Indicates the continued success of Shopify's AI strategy and its ability to expand merchant reach and sales.

while the volume from Agentic commerce is still small relative to our massive GMV, the growth trends are impressive, both AI-driven traffic and also orders to Shopify stores tripled year-over-year in the second quarter.

Find out whether SHOP delivers this. Inve re-checks your case every morning.

Q&A highlights

How does Shopify plan to monetize the value created by AI, or is the intent still to open doors for merchant acquisition?

Shopify's monetization strategy remains consistent: unlock more places for merchants to sell, and earn on those sales through existing economics. Agentic GMV directly translates to more Shopify revenue without new fees. AI disproportionately benefits Shopify's core merchant base (smaller, specialized brands), and as they grow, Shopify grows with them.

“We unlock more places for our merchants to sell. And when we earn on those sales the way we always have. We think -- you've seen this, of course, but the Agentic transactions carried the exact economics of an online store transaction. There's no new fees. There's no separate pricing. But more agenetic GMV, it means more Shopify revenue, and that's the model and it's been working really well from this 2 decades.”

asked by Hoi-Fung Wong · answered by Harley Finkelstein

2 min read 6 chapters

Detailed narrative

AI-Powered Commerce Infrastructure

Shopify is actively building foundational infrastructure to enable 'commerce everywhere' in the agentic era. Key initiatives include Catalog, an authoritative source for AI product discovery, which structures merchant product data for AI partners, leading to 2x conversion rates compared to scraped data.

The Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), introduced in early 2026, has seen adoption by dozens of retailers and platforms, making every Shopify merchant UCP ready and allowing builders to access product data, create carts, and check out using the protocol.

Agentic Commerce Growth and Merchant Benefit

Agentic commerce is showing impressive growth trends, with AI-driven traffic and orders to Shopify stores tripling year-over-year in Q2. New buyer orders from AI channels are arriving at nearly twice the rate of other channels. This growth disproportionately benefits smaller, specialized brands, with 75% of AI attributed orders in Q2 coming from outside Shopify's top 100 categories, indicating a structural advantage for the long tail of commerce.

Sidekick Adoption and Impact

Sidekick, Shopify's AI assistant, is seeing significant adoption and driving real value for merchants. Daily active merchants using Sidekick were up 3.6x year-on-year, and daily sessions increased 4.8x in Q2. It handled nearly 34 million conversations and was used to create over 36,000 custom apps.

Sidekick's personalized onboarding guidance led to an 8% increase in new merchants reaching 5 orders within 15 days, demonstrating its effectiveness in accelerating early merchant success.

Checkout and Identity as Core Strengths

As commerce becomes more fragmented, Shopify's best-in-class checkout and buyer identity solutions are increasingly critical. Shop Pay surpassed $400 billion in lifetime accelerated GMV in June, serving as a trusted payment layer across new surfaces. The Shop App's native GMV grew over 70% in Q2, with features like Cartzinc contributing significantly, highlighting the value of known buyers and seamless shopping experiences.

International and Offline Expansion

Shopify continues to expand its reach internationally and in offline retail. International GMV grew 37% in Q2, supported by the launch of local payment methods in Mexico and the expansion of Managed Markets to Canada and the U.K. Offline point-of-sale (POS) GMV grew 32% year-over-year, showing strong momentum with large, complex retailers and delivering enhanced unified commerce capabilities.

Enterprise Adoption and Unified Commerce

Larger brands, including Guess, Fred Segal, Avon, e.l.f. Cosmetics, Claire's, Burton, and Suit Supply, are increasingly choosing Shopify to modernize their operations. The company emphasizes its unified commerce offering, exemplified by its expanded relationship with Arhaus, which now leverages Shopify for online, offline, B2B, and Shopify Payments, demonstrating the platform's ability to manage diverse customer groups and channels through a single backend.

Summary of the company's earnings call; see how call summaries are prepared. Not investment advice.