“Our merchants are succeeding,” Chief Financial Officer Jeff Hoffmeister said on the eCommerce company’s earnings call Wednesday (Aug. 6).
“These results exceeded expectations driven by the outperformance in North America and Europe. And importantly, we had factored into our guidance some potential impact from tariffs, which did not materialize.”
Expounding on that issue, Hoffmeister said Shopify hadn’t seen any declines in U.S. demand, whether “inbound, outbound or local,” and that it had accelerated.
“One change that we have seen is that many of our merchants have raised prices,” he said. “We are tracking that in relation to overall inflation levels in the U.S. The U.S. government’s recent announcements regarding the de minimis exemption for other countries beyond China is still in the very early stages.”
He added that just around 4% of Shopify’s worldwide gross merchandise value (GMV) is shipped under de minimis exemptions.
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“And we’ve not seen any significant changes in our GMV levels relating to merchants that shipped products under the de minimis exemptions for China since those rules were changed back in May,” Hoffmeister said.
On the payments front, the earnings report shows Shopify’s global payments penetration reaching 64% during the quarter, up 61% year over year. Shop Pay, the company’s accelerated checkout, saw its GMV jump by 65% to $27 billion. The company also expanded its payments product into 16 new countries this year and while rolling out multi-entity support for higher-volume global merchants.
In a nod to evolving payment preferences, the company rolled out a USDC stablecoin option for international transactions, partnering with Coinbase, opening the door for features like authorized capture and refunds for crypto payments.
“Payment preferences are changing fast, and Shopify is making sure our merchants are ready for what is next,” company President Harley Finkelstein said.
The company also spotlighted its approach to “agentic commerce,” the integration of shopping into AI conversations. New products such as Catalog, Universal Cart and the improved Checkout Kit — already in use by Microsoft Copilot — are designed to embed seamless shopping experiences within AI platforms. The company’s AI assistant for merchants, Sidekick, provides “actionable insights” for optimizing inventory and analyzing customer churn.
