Stripe - Connecting the Dots?

Stripe is incredibly well positioned to compete directly with Shopify. It sounds incredibly unfocused, but I can map the dots.

Profile, identity, and trust. A consumer-side marketplace that knows buying behaviours, returns, and chargebacks. The ability to build incredible look-alike audiences. An inventory manager, think TradeGecko, sitting inside a payment processor. I’m imagining an agentic marketplace. Containers + inventory.

For merchants, if you’re already paying for ads, why wouldn’t you just run them through Stripe directly? Unsure what value Shopify provides in that world.