Shopify NFT Marketplace – Is This The Watershed Moment for NFTs?

Shopify is rolling out a feature that allows merchants to natively sell NFTs on their own Shopify stores. A feature like this instantly opens up the doors to a much bigger audience for NFTs because it means that existing Shopify customer bases would be able to purchase NFTs with the same ease as buying a Kylie Lip Kit – simply browse a familiar store and purchase an NFT with your credit card.

Testing With The Bulls

One of the first Shopify stores that are testing this feature is the Chicago Bulls organization. Their 6-day NFT drop features their six championship rings: 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998.

Each of the six days they’re releasing a digital version of that year’s championship ring. The first drop of the 1991 ring is a collection of 91 rings, with three tiers of rarity. The second drop of the 1992 ring is a collection of 92 rings… so on and so forth until the ‘98 drop.

We’re three days into the release and I’ve been waking up early to get my hands on one of these bad boys (because I’m a massive Bulls fan).

But each day, they’re selling out in less than a minute! Today, the collection was literally gone in 15 seconds.

Their Discord group is speculating that people are using bots to snag these drops – something that is all too familiar on Shopify stores already.

At the moment, there’s no way to resell these NFTs outside of maybe eBay or a private sale. This is because they’re using the Flow blockchain, which is a closed ecosystem unless the contracts are written to integrate with other blockchains (as is the case with CryptoKitties but not NBA Top Shot, which are both built on Flow).

However, Shopify has teased they’ll be launching a greater Shopify NFT marketplace – where I imagine all NFTs bought through a Shopify store will be able to be relisted.

What This Means for Shopify Merchants

First and foremost, this means that Shopify Merchants now have a simple way to sell NFTs to their existing customer bases, without asking them to venture off into unfamiliar platforms like OpenSea.

Furthermore, it allows merchants to control the experience, theoretically, opening up really interesting NFT experiences such as:

1. Gifting NFTs to patrons of your Shopify store as a way to appreciate them.
2. Creating locked, tiered products on your Shopify store accessible only to those who own one of your NFTs.
3. Giving your customer base a way to interact and trade with one another, instead of just a one-way purchase behavior.

We’re still many features away from Shopify making a well-rounded play in NFTs. Nonetheless, it’s an exciting announcement that gets our creative juices flowing.

Interested in learning about NFTs from a non-technical perspective? Then you'll want to check out The NFT Handbook.