Shopify Inc.SHOP.TOCOMMENTSep 13, 2016Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Nov 13, 2026. Market Open.
Ad revenues are being hurt with subscribers pulling back. Cutting marketing and staff. Will the economy slow, thereby reducing customers shopping online? Trades ~75x forward PE. It's a domino effect of whether it can keep margins up, which keeps cashflow up, which makes earnings rise. If not, there will be hiccups in a stock priced for perfection.
Secular winner. Omnichannel merchandising in a box, with an actively growing POS business. Merchant solutions (~80% of sales) include add-ons to monthly subscriptions. Great second quarter, sales up in 30% range and earnings ~20%. Guidance calls for more of the same.
Increasingly demonstrating that AI is not a disruptor, but a tool. Lots of FCF, buying back lots of shares. In middle innings of the global e-commerce story. Expensive (as always), ~70x PE. Use the charts to buy in.
Hit earlier in the year on the SaaSpocalypse, which was misguided to some degree. Won't get replaced, very agentic. About 14% of total US e-commerce, major player. Always rich, but now at the low end. Spending hasn't increased, yet cashflow is growing. META Muse announcement has lifted stock recently.
This fits into the theme of cloud-based computing. The company provides the back end to small Internet retailers. They have something like 300,000 companies that use their infrastructure. The companies pay about $50 a month and can buy additional services to strap onto that. They also get a percentage of revenue of about 1.5%. This company is a long way ahead of its competitors. Something new is that they have also gotten into financing their customers, by taking a royalty on the revenue, so that could be a big new business for them also.