· Community · 5 min read
The Triangle's Ecommerce Economy Is Bigger Than You Think
From billion-dollar platforms to DTC startups, the Raleigh-Durham area is home to a deep bench of ecommerce companies. Here's who's here.
If you work in ecommerce in the Triangle, you probably know about a few of the big names. But when you start mapping out the full ecosystem, the list is staggering. The Raleigh-Durham area has quietly become one of the most concentrated ecommerce hubs on the East Coast.
This isn’t just a couple of companies. It’s platforms, payment processors, agencies, fulfillment operations, retailers, and DTC brands, all within a 30-minute drive of each other.
The platforms
Rithum (formerly ChannelAdvisor), headquartered in Morrisville, has been here since 2001. Their commerce operations platform manages over $50 billion in annual GMV across 400+ marketplace and retail channels. ChannelAdvisor went public on the NYSE, was acquired by CommerceHub in 2022, and the combined company rebranded as Rithum in 2023.
commercetools chose Durham as its US headquarters. The company pioneered headless commerce and hit unicorn status in 2021 with a $1.9 billion valuation. Their clients include Sephora, Audi, and Carhartt.
Lulu.com in Morrisville, founded by Red Hat co-founder Bob Young, runs a print-on-demand marketplace with over 2 million titles shipping to 225 countries.
And then there’s Epic Games in Cary. While known for Fortnite, the Epic Games Store is a massive digital commerce operation with 295 million+ PC customers and over $1 billion in annual player spend.
Payments and tax
Avalara effectively moved its headquarters to Durham after Vista Equity Partners acquired them for $8.4 billion. They have 400+ employees here and are still growing. If you sell online, there’s a good chance Avalara handles your sales tax.
Spreedly, also in Durham, processes nearly a million transactions daily through their payments orchestration platform, connecting businesses to 140+ payment gateways. They handle $60 billion+ in annual GMV.
The agencies
The Triangle has a deep bench of ecommerce-focused agencies.
ROI Revolution in Raleigh has been at it since 2002, managing paid search, marketplace advertising, and social for 290+ ecommerce clients. They drive over $1 billion in annual revenue for their clients.
Brighter Click (Raleigh) focuses on paid social and creative strategy for ecommerce brands. intelligentECOM (Raleigh) is all-in on Shopify. Kadro Solutions (Raleigh) has been building on Magento and Shopify Plus since 2001. Blue Acorn iCi (now part of Infosys) does enterprise commerce on Adobe. ITG Commerce out of Chapel Hill is an Adobe Solutions Partner. Atlantic BT and Netalico Commerce round out a deep pool of development talent.
Retailers and DTC brands
This is where it gets fun. The Triangle isn’t just building ecommerce tools. People here are selling things too.
Peter Millar, the luxury golf and lifestyle brand, was founded in Raleigh in 2001 and runs its distribution out of Durham. They were acquired by Richemont (parent of Cartier and Montblanc) in 2012.
Burt’s Bees has been headquartered in Durham since 1999, selling natural personal care products through their DTC site and 30,000+ retail doors.
Spoonflower in Durham runs a print-on-demand marketplace for custom fabric, wallpaper, and home decor with hundreds of thousands of designer patterns. They were acquired by Shutterfly in 2021.
The Woobles out of Cary sells beginner crochet kits and landed a deal with Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner on Shark Tank. Founded by Duke alumni.
Stitch Golf in Cary makes luxury golf bags and leather headcovers used by PGA Tour players.
Virtue Labs in Raleigh makes premium hair care products that TIME named one of the Best Inventions of 2024.
Ford’s Gourmet Foods has been making Bone Suckin’ Sauce in Raleigh since 1992. A fourth-generation family business selling nationally through grocery and DTC.
Videri Chocolate Factory in downtown Raleigh is one of the few true bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the US, shipping online nationwide.
Jerry’s Artarama in Raleigh is one of the top online art supply retailers in the country, with 50+ years in business.
Great Outdoor Provision Co. has been based in Raleigh since 1972, running nine stores and an ecommerce site across NC and Virginia.
The Produce Box and Papa Spud’s, both in Raleigh, run online farm-to-door delivery services connecting local NC farms to Triangle households.
Implus Corporation in Durham is the parent company behind 16+ active lifestyle brands including SKLZ, TriggerPoint, and Balega, with products in 60,000+ retail outlets across 60 countries.
Johnnie-O runs its East Coast headquarters and distribution out of Raleigh-Durham, with a branded retail store at North Hills.
The enterprise anchors
The Triangle’s ecommerce ecosystem doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It sits on top of a massive enterprise tech base.
SAS Institute in Cary, one of the world’s largest private software companies, powers retail analytics and customer intelligence for major retailers. Red Hat (IBM) in Raleigh provides the cloud infrastructure that ecommerce platforms run on. Lenovo in Morrisville runs a global DTC ecommerce operation from their US headquarters. Pendo in Raleigh, valued at $2.6 billion, provides product analytics used by ecommerce and SaaS companies everywhere. Bandwidth in Raleigh provides the communications APIs that power customer service operations across retail.
The alumni network
Some of the Triangle’s most important ecommerce companies have been acquired, but their people are still here.
Bronto Software in Durham built an email marketing platform for ecommerce retailers, was acquired by NetSuite for $200 million, then absorbed by Oracle. iContact in Morrisville, founded by UNC students, was acquired for $169 million. Windsor Circle in Durham built a predictive retention marketing platform for ecommerce before being acquired. The talent from these companies seeded the next generation of startups and agencies across the region.
So what does this mean?
There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of people within a short drive of each other who spend their days thinking about how to sell things online. Platform engineers, marketplace strategists, paid media buyers, fulfillment operators, brand founders, tax compliance experts, payment architects, and more.
Most of them don’t know each other.
That’s why we started Triangle Ecommerce. If you’re one of these people, come to a happy hour and meet the rest of them.
