Introduction

MailChimp and Shopify decided to part ways about a week ago due to differences with regards to how they shared their customer data in their respective applications. Before this took place, MailChimp quietly acqui-hired Shopify’s fellow competitor LemonStand for their services.

Read on to know more about what this acquisition-hire means for MailChimp and LemonStand.

What is LemonStand?

LemonStand was a former e-commerce company based out of Vancouver, Canada. The company developed cloud-based computer software that was made available to online retailers. It is one of Shopify’s smaller competitors.

What is MailChimp?

MailChimp is a platform that provides e-mail marketing services. It is a marketing automation platform based out of Atlanta, Georgia, US. The company helps businesses grow by providing various services such as advertising, e-mail marketing, landing pages and other automation tools.

MailChimp has been slowly building its revenue stream in e-commerce. It integrates many other features into its platform that will allow its customers to sell items as a part of their marketing strategy. For example, they can offer sale items as a part of a company’s promotional campaign.

See Also: McDonald’s Acquires an AI Company Named Dynamic Yield

The Acqui-Hire of LemonStand

When asked, Mailchimp confirmed the deal between Mailchimp and LemonStand. They described it as an Acqui-hire. The LemonStand team will now work on MailChimp’s light e-commerce functionality. The hiring of the team behind LemonStand was done at the end of February itself. No financial terms were disclosed.

Mailchimp said that the acquisition was made in order to create more features to the platform’s customers, especially when it came to those in e-commerce. They claim that their main aim is to help small businesses grow, and when it comes to e-commerce, their customers had been asking the company to add more functions that can be used to the Mailchimp platform. This would be done to help the e-commerce companies improve their marketing process and make it more efficient, and the LemonStand team would help Mailchimp achieve this goal.

The Future of Mailchimp

As per Mailchimp’s claims, the LemonStand deal is not related to the ending of their agreement with Shopify, but even then the acquisition of LemonStand is a pretty obvious indicator of the growing role of Mailchimp’s venture into e-commerce.

The main function that Mailchimp provides is email marketing and other marketing services to businesses across industries. Over time, the company has slowly been building a separate revenue stream in the e-commerce sector by integrating a number of their features into its platform that will help its customers maybe sell items to boost their marketing process. This is not to create a full fledged e-commerce platform, but to offer a one-off sale list of items as a part of a marketing campaign.

“We believe small businesses are best served when they can choose which technology they use to run their businesses, which is why we integrate with more than 150 different apps and platforms including e-commerce platforms,” Mailchimp said in its statement. Subscribe to iTMunch for daily updates in the world of technology, AI, marketing, HR, finance and more!

FAQs

FAQs

  1. What is LemonStand? LemonStand was a cloud-based e-commerce software company based in Vancouver, Canada. It developed solutions to help online retailers build and manage their stores, positioning itself as a competitor to Shopify.
  2. What is MailChimp? MailChimp is an email marketing platform based in Atlanta, Georgia, US. It provides marketing automation services to businesses, including email marketing, landing pages, advertisements, and other tools designed to help businesses grow.
  3. What does “acqui-hire” mean? An acqui-hire refers to a type of acquisition where a company buys another company primarily for its team rather than its products or services. In this case, MailChimp acqui-hired LemonStand to gain the team behind their e-commerce solutions.
  4. Why did MailChimp acquire LemonStand? MailChimp acquired LemonStand to enhance its e-commerce offerings. The LemonStand team will help improve MailChimp’s light e-commerce functionality, allowing them to better serve small businesses with more tools to improve marketing and sales.
  5. Is the LemonStand acquisition related to MailChimp’s breakup with Shopify? No, MailChimp stated that the LemonStand acquisition is unrelated to its parting ways with Shopify. However, the acquisition does signal MailChimp’s increasing focus on the e-commerce sector.
  6. How does MailChimp’s acquisition of LemonStand affect its platform? The acquisition enables MailChimp to expand its e-commerce capabilities by integrating new features into its platform, helping businesses, especially in e-commerce, improve their marketing processes.
  7. What is MailChimp’s goal in the e-commerce space? MailChimp aims to provide small businesses with marketing tools, including e-commerce features like promoting sales items as part of their marketing campaigns, without becoming a full-fledged e-commerce platform.