What does the e-commerce stack in arts and crafts supplies really look like? For this report we identified around 5,900 active craft, art supply, yarn and sewing shops worldwide from the HTTP Archive (as of August 2026) and analysed which shop system they run on and which payment methods, marketing, review and chat apps they use.
Key findings
- Shopify is the industry standard: 53.4% of all arts and crafts shops run on Shopify, roughly three times its overall market share.
- WooCommerce (15.6%) is the clear number two and the typical migration starting point.
- Unlike in professional DTC industries, Mailchimp (12.0%) is just ahead of Klaviyo (11.1%) here, a sign of many small hobby and maker shops.
- Loyalty is strikingly strong: the Smile app reaches 5.0%, the highest value in our reports, fitting a loyal, recurring hobby community.
- Checkout is wallet-first: PayPal (47.2%), Apple Pay (42.6%) and Shop Pay (40.9%) lead.
Which shop system does the creative industry use?
At 53.4%, Shopify is the clear industry standard. WooCommerce follows at 15.6% as the typical migration starting point.
| Shop system | Share of craft shops |
|---|---|
| Shopify | 53.4% |
| WooCommerce | 15.6% |
| Wix eCommerce | 5.5% |
| Squarespace Commerce | 3.5% |
| Shopware | 1.6% |
| PrestaShop | 1.4% |
| Square Online | 1.3% |
| JTL Shop | 0.9% |
| Lightspeed eCom | 0.8% |
| OpenCart | 0.7% |
Share of 5,909 classified arts and crafts shops. The Wappalyzer catch-all "Cart Functionality" is excluded.
How do customers pay in craft shops?
Checkout is wallet-first, with PayPal in the lead. This fits a broad, often international hobby buyer base.
| Payment method | Share of craft shops |
|---|---|
| PayPal | 47.2% |
| Apple Pay | 42.6% |
| Shop Pay | 40.9% |
| Google Pay | 29.4% |
| Klarna | 7.7% |
| Stripe | 3.2% |
Which review tools do craft shops use?
24.8% of all craft shops use a detectable review tool, with Judge.me as the clear favourite.
| Review tool | Share of craft shops |
|---|---|
| Judge.me | 16.1% |
| Trustpilot | 2.1% |
| Loox | 1.7% |
| Trusted Shops | 1.4% |
| Yotpo Reviews | 1.3% |
| Klaviyo Reviews | 0.7% |
24.8% of craft shops use at least one detectable review tool.
What do craft shops run email marketing with?
31.9% of craft shops use a marketing automation tool. Unlike in professional DTC industries, Mailchimp is just ahead of Klaviyo here, a hint at many small hobby and maker shops.
| Marketing tool | Share of craft shops |
|---|---|
| Mailchimp | 12.0% |
| Klaviyo | 11.1% |
| PushOwl | 3.1% |
| Omnisend | 2.5% |
| Sendinblue (Brevo) | 1.7% |
| MailerLite | 1.1% |
31.9% of craft shops use at least one marketing automation tool.
How do craft shops communicate with customers?
Live chat is less common here than in other industries: only 12.9% of shops use a tool, led by WhatsApp Business.
| Chat / support tool | Share of craft shops |
|---|---|
| WhatsApp Business Chat | 8.6% |
| Zendesk | 1.0% |
| Tawk.to | 0.6% |
| Tidio | 0.6% |
| Gorgias | 0.5% |
12.9% of craft shops use at least one live chat or support tool.
Which Shopify apps are most popular in arts and crafts?
For the shops on Shopify, loyalty is the dominant theme: the Smile loyalty app reaches 5.0%, the highest value across all our reports, joined by wishlists. This fits a loyal, recurring hobby community.
| Shopify app | Share of craft shops |
|---|---|
| Smile (Loyalty) | 5.0% |
| Swym Wishlist Plus | 2.2% |
| Hextom Free Shipping Bar | 1.5% |
| Seal Subscriptions | 1.4% |
| Pandectes (GDPR) | 1.2% |
| ShopPad Infinite Options | 1.1% |
Detectable, front-end-visible apps. Pure back-end apps without a front-end fingerprint are not captured.
What this means for your shop
Arts and crafts is a solid Shopify industry: at 53.4%, Shopify is the standard, with WooCommerce at 15.6% the typical migration pool. The industry is shaped by many small, often owner-run maker and hobby shops.
This shows in the stack: Mailchimp just ahead of Klaviyo (less enterprise-DTC than beauty or supplements) and a low live-chat share. Strikingly high, by contrast, is the loyalty adoption, which fits the loyal, recurring customer base.
For a migration Shopify is attractive because it gives small creative shops a professional toolkit for loyalty, wishlists and a smooth wallet checkout, without technical maintenance overhead.
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Frequently asked questions Which shop system do most arts and crafts shops use?
Which tools do successful craft shops use?
How were the craft shops identified?
Sources & methodology
This is our own analysis of the technology detection of the HTTP Archive (crawl of 1 August 2026, mobile home pages, deduplicated per domain). From all shops detected as e-commerce, we classified craft shops via the shop description (OpenGraph and Twitter metadata), limited to shops with unambiguous product signals (e.g. craft supplies, art supplies, yarn, sewing, fabric) and excluding galleries, classes and jewelry shops. A manual sample check found around 82% precision; the remaining fuzziness mainly concerns adjacent handicraft. All percentages refer to the 5,909 classified shops. The automatic technology detection is not perfect in every individual case, and pure back-end apps without a visible code fingerprint are not captured.
Conducted by
Richard Roth
SEO & GEO Strategist
Till Täubrich
Shopify Development & Migration
Research and analysis by the team at store2x, specialised in Shopify migration and SEO.