Shopify shares are surging today on news that the company is expanding its Shop Pay option to Facebook and Instagram. Shop's general manager Carl Rivera told Cheddar the move is all about speeding up checkout and bringing in more sales for merchants.

"Generally, as a rule of thumb, I think what's good for the consumer is good for the merchant, and when we look at Shop Pay's performance, it's 70 percent faster than a regular checkout," Rivera said.

The company isn't just upgrading the shopping experience online. It's also taking steps to "offset the carbon emissions" when delivering packages. Typically, customers are charged a fee when opting to have packages delivered with minimal impact on the environment.

Shopify has maintained its partnership with Facebook since 2015 and according to Rivera, the deal to expand checkout options across the platform, as well as Instagram, was perfect for the company. The platforms have come to embrace the evolving e-commerce industry by integrating tools brands can use to boost discovery and in turn, increase their sales, he said. 

"I think what's so exciting about Shop Pay is that it really gives small businesses and large businesses alike the benefits of having hundreds of people working in their e-commerce department, improving their checkout experiences, and I think that is really the key and true benefit of building your business on the Shopify platform," Rivera explained.

For many consumers today, online shopping, particularly through a behemoth of a social network like Facebook, raises concerns about how personal data could be used, but according to Rivera, protecting users on the platform is of the highest importance. 

Despite consumer concerns about data privacy, Rivera said Shop plans to "double down" on prospects that have so far pushed the company to the level it is at today. And much of that success can be attributed to the pandemic.

"What the pandemic did for commerce was not to change the trajectory but to accelerate it. It brought the future, the 10 years horizon of the future, into the present, and that's what we're seeing," he noted.

The company's stock is up 190 percent year over year.

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