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Here is an interesting version of the story of the break between Shopify and Mailchimp last week, after the two men disagreed about how customer data was shared between the two companies. Before separating from Shopify, Mailchimp had quietly acquired LemonStand, one of the smallest competitors of the e-commerce platform, to integrate more e-commerce functions integrated into its platform. .
After the announcement of the breakdown between Mailchimp and Shopify, rumors began to circulate among e-commerce players about Mailchimp's takeover of Vancouver-based LemonStand, which had announced the closure of its service on March 5th. in 90 days, June 5, without too much explanation why.
We were informed of these rumors, so we contacted Ross Paul, vice president of growth LemonStand and investor in the startup, who suggested we contact Mailchimp. (Paul now lists Mailchimp as his employer in his LinkedIn profile.) Mailchimp has confirmed the deal, describing it as an acqui-hire, with the team now focusing on e-commerce features.
"Mailchimp recruited the team behind LemonStand at the end of February," Mailchimp said in a statement delivered to TechCrunch. He did not provide financial conditions for the transaction.
Mailchimp – a private company based in Atlanta – said it had made the acquisition to provide more functionality to its customers, including those of e-commerce.
"Mailchimp is helping small businesses grow and our e-commerce customers are asking us to add more features to our platform to help them market more effectively," the company said in a statement. "The LemonStand team is helping us develop our e-commerce lighting functionality."
But Mailchimp is clear that its acquisition was not related to the end of its relationship with Shopify.
"Our decision to terminate our partnership with Shopify last week is unrelated to LemonStand," Mailchimp said. "Shopify knew we were working on eCommerce features well before hiring the LemonStand team. In fact, we launched Shoppable Landing Pages last fall in partnership with Square and Shopify chose not to collaborate with us for the launch. "
Although the LemonStand agreement is not related to its split with Shopify, the acquisition of one and the split with the other go in the same direction: the growing role of Mailchimp's e-commerce business.
The company – which provides email marketing services and other business marketing services – has slowly created a source of revenue in ecommerce by incorporating a number of features into its platform to enable its customers for example, selling items as part of the marketing process. . It is less a question of creating full check-out experiences or commercial backgrounds than offering, for example, items for sale in a particular promotion or campaign.
Last year, when Mailchimp launched these new shoppable landing pages with Square, he said that 50% of his revenue now came from e-commerce. Its customers have sold for more than $ 22 billion of products in the first half of 2018. Mailchimp has made some $ 600 million in revenue in 2018, which means that if its eCommerce business counts at 50% remained constant, earning $ 300 million last year alone in e – commerce – related services.
The Square partnership is instructive in light of this acquisition. Although Mailchimp does indeed develop native ecommerce features for its platform, it will continue to work with third parties (if not Shopify, the most important of them) to provide other features.
"We think small businesses are better served when they can choose the technology to use to manage them. That's why we integrate more than 150 different applications and platforms, including e-commerce platforms, "Mailchimp said in his statement to TechCrunch.
"We are not trying to become an e-commerce platform or compete directly with companies such as Shopify," he adds, "and we believe that the addition of e-commerce features in Mailchimp will help our e-commerce partners, companies will be able to start their business with Mailchimp and benefit from a seamless experience, and they will eventually use Mailchimp with one of our e-commerce partners. "
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