Shopify Puts Down Roots in L.A. With First Retail Space
*By Carlo Versano*
Shopify, the Canadian e-commerce and point-of-sale software company that built a small empire helping small businesses go online, is now expanding in downtown Los Angeles with its first brick-and-mortar space.
The space is less "store" and more "community space for entrepreneurs," said Shopify ($SHOP) product boss Satish Kanwar.
"Our goal is to make entrepreneurship more accessible," he said Thursday in an interview on Cheddar.
The space will be open seven days a week and feature workshops and classes with Shopify experts; host lessons on merchandising, marketing, and photography; and facilitate one-on-one appointments that merchants can book, à la Apple's ($AAPL) Genius Bar.
Downtown L.A. was the obvious location for planting the first brick-and-mortar flag in the ground, Kanwar said ー given how many Shopify merchants are from the Los Angeles area (10,000, by his count, and over 600,000 worldwide).
But the concept can be tailored to any area with a healthy population of small business and start-ups.
"Entrepreneurship can be difficult and hard at times," Kanwar said.
Shopify wants to provide a service for existing customers and attract a pool of new ones ー some of whom may not even know the service exists but may see the space and think about that business they've always wanted to start.
Of course, it's also indicative of a move into physical retail "experiences" for brands that were once synonymous with e-commerce operations. Sure enough, Kanwar used the "experience" buzzword to describe how he sees people interacting with the Shopify space. By having a retail footprint that isn't purely transactional, people can "learn about what you stand for," he said.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/a-look-at-the-future-of-retail-with-shopifys-satish-kanwar).
Cheddar News breaks down what to look for Next Week on the Street. Donald Trump will be arraigned after his indictment this week while jobs data for March will be released.
NBA's Giannis Antetokounmpo and investor John Koudounis are launching an ETF to make investing more accessible, with 10% of profits going to charitable causes. Both joined Cheddar News to discuss their partnership and explain the importance of their venture.
UPS has more than 100,000 drivers on roads across the globe. Lindsay Cordova, Site Manager for UPS Integrad, joins Cheddar News to discuss what this intense training entails, and its Circle of Honor program for employees.
A federal appeals court has ruled that a 2018 Twitter post by Tesla CEO Elon Musk unlawfully threatened Tesla employees with the loss of stock options if they decided to be represented by a union.
Major news organizations such as The New York Times and Washington Post are declining to pay to have their accounts verified on Twitter ahead of the anticipated changes on the platform Saturday.
Netflix said it plans to reorganize its film unit with the aim of making fewer movies a year as it looks to cut costs with layoffs and a reorganization in the works.
The Week's Top Stories is a guided tour through the biggest market stories of the week, from winning stocks to brutal dips to the facts and forecasts generating buzz on Wall Street.
Board members picked by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to oversee the governance of Walt Disney World said Wednesday that their Disney-controlled predecessors pulled a fast one on them by passing restrictive covenants that strip the new board of many of its powers.
