Amazon is mostly drop shippers too, and Etsy for that matter, what's being sold by "shops" on Shopify or "merchants" on Amazon isn't really the issue. It should not at all be surprising that "low effort" shops are more numerous. There's quality stuff on all those platforms, and Shopify (for now) is better to the merchants.

Amazon's total dominance of online shopping is because of their logistics network and having more than one company providing fast inexpensive shipping is good, it means people have somewhere else to go if Amazon gives them a raw deal.

Isn't shopify also a lot of non-Shopify branded web shops? I don't think crappy dropshipping stuff from Asia will ever go away, that's why middlemen are important, those can filter out the bad crap products. At which point those middlemen also become a brand, it doesn't work without reputation. Funny little commerce actually changed from the first time someone sold a stone knife for a handful of berries.

[disclaimer: I work at Shopify]

My experience is that all the shops are non-Shopify 'branded'. Some are on shopify.com subdomains if they haven't set up a custom domain.

yes it is. Alot of apparel and sneaker sites use shopify. I’ve interacted with them when i used to make bots,but Filtering products won’t work when buyers are looking for the cheapest product at least in my opinion. Also imo shopify is the reason bots are/were able to become so dominant.

disclaimer I work for Shopify, opinions are my own.

I do not think this is true. I don't know the % of shops that are drop shippers, but I do not think it's the majority. Most Shopify merchants are selling things. A lot of stores are Shopify stores that are on custom domains and unless you look at the source, nothing tells you that they are a Shopify merchant. I know of RPG and Board Game publishers and designers with Shopify stores, a local coffee shop and coffee roaster is a Shopify merchant, food companies, etc. There are companies that that have IPOd that started as Shopify stores selling their own things; Which is really cool.

> and unless you look at the source, nothing tells you that they are a Shopify merchant

Unless they are doing a headless integration, the Shopify UI is very easy to spot. For me this has started to become a signal of shops to take great caution and best to avoid.

If not during shopping, then once you add the product to the cart, it is very obvious.

> this has started to become a signal of shops to take great caution and best to avoid

Interesting, I've generally felt the opposite. Do you feel it is as bad as Amazon? Do you have some examples of Shopify shops that are particularly bad?

You do know that as soon as you set up a new Shopify store, the first suggestion from the install wizard is to add a plug-in that makes it easier to drop ship AliExpress products, right?

I buy lots of stuff from Shopify merchants who make / source unique products: clothing, bike gear, skincare, electronics. I'm sure there are a lot of crappy drop shippers too but I'd hope to not see them in a search experience. Guess that would be up to Shopify to sort out. But I'm hopeful. Anything who's been paying attention realizes that trust in Amazon is eroding fast. It's an opp for Shopify.

Shopify basically has the data for this. They could just exclude from the search sites that don't already get a decent amount of direct sales. There are other metrics as well like refunds/ chargebacks and return customers.

i am looking for some unique products. Wondering what people's favorites are.

The next shopify site I'm queued up to work on is something I'm choosing the platform for because its POS offering looks like it offers a better rate than stripe terminal. I think it's a pretty sweet option if you're selling something in-person or services to this end, I like the timeslot plugin stuff.

Pretty sure as I understand it that a lot of that dropshipping crap from alibaba kinda petered out with those massive shipping container delays

As with any open marketplace, there will always be varying degrees of quality.

The best way to respond is to build tools that allow the market to bring high quality shops to the top, and lower quality shops that provide poor customer service or fraudulent products to be suppressed. In this way, the consumer benefits through the consumer experience of others.

Shopify is a little too close to their shops to be able to provide this type of tool, because they have the obligation to support each and every one of their shops.

Third party search engines, built to support the Shopify platform are able to implement these types of tools and bring a user curated shopping experience to shoppers.

So, you're right in that a search bar can shine a spotlight on the dark corners of e-commerce, but that doesn't mean that there aren't ways to create a better experience.