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ShopKeep vs Shopify
March 17, 2025 | Author: Sandeep Sharma
16★
Feature-packed iPad point of sale. Reporting, analytics and support that will take your business to the next level. Track and manage stock all in one convenient place. Build your database and drive repeat business. Track hours worked and identify star performers.
35★
Simple, Beautiful, and Flexible End-to-End E-Commerce Solution. Simply choose a stylish ecommerce website design, easily customize your online store, add products, and you're pretty much ready to accept payments. Whether you already have products, are looking to sell digital goods or are interested in drop shipping — Shopify has a complete solution for you.
ShopKeep and Shopify, despite their differences, are like two intergalactic merchants who both insist they have the best universal trading system. They both let you track sales, manage inventory and accept payments, ensuring that no sentient being—human or otherwise—ever goes without their desperately needed artisanal coffee or existentially significant novelty socks. Their cloud-based nature means that, much like the Vogon planning office, all your data is somewhere in the sky, floating ominously and slightly out of reach. Both have subscription-based pricing, which means you will never quite own them, much like you never really own your soul after signing up for a mobile phone contract.
ShopKeep, which emerged in 2008 in the rather Earth-bound United States, is designed primarily for small businesses, cafes and shops that sell things like cupcakes and regret. It built its empire on iPads, convincing people that touchscreen transactions are the future—a belief only slightly dented by the occasional, inexplicable software crash. Unlike Shopify, it has never been overly concerned with building vast online marketplaces but instead focused on helping shopkeepers in physical locations pretend they still live in an era where customers speak to each other rather than their phones. It was eventually absorbed by Lightspeed in 2020, proving that even small, feisty businesses can eventually get eaten by a larger corporate beast, much like a particularly slow-moving space slug.
Shopify, on the other hand, hails from Canada and has been around since 2006, making it the slightly older but no less excitable cousin. It started with the radical notion that people might actually want to sell things on the internet, which, against all logic, turned out to be true. Unlike ShopKeep, Shopify lets you build an entire online empire, customize it with infinite themes and sell your wares across multiple platforms—ensuring your brand reaches customers whether they’re shopping on social media or browsing in a state of late-night existential dread. It scales from a single-person operation selling ironic T-shirts to global corporations moving enough product to fill a small moon and if there’s one thing we’ve learned from Star Wars, it’s that small moons are often not what they seem.
See also: Top 10 Retail software
ShopKeep, which emerged in 2008 in the rather Earth-bound United States, is designed primarily for small businesses, cafes and shops that sell things like cupcakes and regret. It built its empire on iPads, convincing people that touchscreen transactions are the future—a belief only slightly dented by the occasional, inexplicable software crash. Unlike Shopify, it has never been overly concerned with building vast online marketplaces but instead focused on helping shopkeepers in physical locations pretend they still live in an era where customers speak to each other rather than their phones. It was eventually absorbed by Lightspeed in 2020, proving that even small, feisty businesses can eventually get eaten by a larger corporate beast, much like a particularly slow-moving space slug.
Shopify, on the other hand, hails from Canada and has been around since 2006, making it the slightly older but no less excitable cousin. It started with the radical notion that people might actually want to sell things on the internet, which, against all logic, turned out to be true. Unlike ShopKeep, Shopify lets you build an entire online empire, customize it with infinite themes and sell your wares across multiple platforms—ensuring your brand reaches customers whether they’re shopping on social media or browsing in a state of late-night existential dread. It scales from a single-person operation selling ironic T-shirts to global corporations moving enough product to fill a small moon and if there’s one thing we’ve learned from Star Wars, it’s that small moons are often not what they seem.
See also: Top 10 Retail software
