Shopify to Allow Direct Selling of NFTs

Shopify is now providing merchants with limited support for the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) directly on its platform, the president of the company, Harley Finklestein, said on Twitter on 26 July.

According to the announcement, Shopify merchants will no longer need to use third-party marketplaces to sell their NFTs, and can instead directly sell their tokens through the Shopify platform. The new service, however, is not available to everyone, with Finklestein saying on Twitter it is currently limited to “a select few for now”. Shopify’s president further stated:

“Before Shopify offered this capability, merchants would have to sell through a 3rd party marketplace aka less control of the sale and customer relationship. Once again we are putting the power back into the hands of merchants and meeting customers how and where they want to buy.”

The first Shopify partner to launch an NFT storefront on the platform is the NBA’s Chicago Bulls, which has already launched an NFT “Legacy Collection” representing the franchise’s six world championship rings between 1991 and 1998. The tokens will be released over six days, with the first already selling out on 26 July, the second being released later today, and the remaining four being scheduled for release over the next four days.

While the hype around such tokens has started to cool off, NFT transaction still accounted for more than $2.5 billion in the first quarter of 2021. Venture capital investors also appear to be bullish when it comes to NFTs, with popular NFT marketplace OpenSea closing a $100 million Series B funding round last week, which brought the valuation of the company to around $1.5 billion.