http://citronresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Shopify…
Just a heads up as SHOP took a sudden hit this morning. Citron is making another boatload of cash creating some fears tying them to the recent Facebook privacy fears.
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Just a heads up as SHOP took a sudden hit this morning. Citron is making another boatload of cash creating some fears tying them to the recent Facebook privacy fears.
On some level, you have to respect their timing. Shopify has hit all time highs recently. FB fear pandemonium is at a peak. They couldn’t have picked a better target.
That said, I think they’re deplorable, and I’m glad the market isn’t taking it too seriously. Looks like it’s already shrugging off the report, as SHOP is back up from a low around $131 to now $137 or so.
I took advantage and grabbed a few shares in my mom’s IRA around $132.
Bear
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What happens to SHOP if FB stops sharing customer data with them?
Facebook cannot stop sharing data. Facebook makes its substantial income on sharing data. Facebook is simply a meeting place for millions without taking, packaging, and sharing data.
Thus, this is all politics playing out. After the mea culpas, and the call for regulations, Facebook will be sharing data en masse.
IT becomes a question rather will people continue to show up and use Facebook, and will people now opt out of data sharing as they can on facebook. Third party apps are certainly going to tak a it on Facebook.
Facebook will come back, sharing its data (ie sharing = selling) as long as people still flock to and use Facebook.
But Facebook, as monolithic as it seems, is in the end no more monolithic than eBay turned out to be.
Shall see if this turns into a Chipolte sort of deal when customers never come back, or a transitory period soon forgotten.
Tinker
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What happens to SHOP if FB restricts, let’s just say…half the data it used to share with them and everyone else?
Zuck is already worth $50Bn or whatever, he can take the short-term hit to the stock price due to a change in how FB operates, which does seem necessary.
Facebook is a big source of advertising for most of the smaller 600,000 merchants (the vast bulk of their merchants). I think they will adjust. I was at a seminar once and was instructed that targeting on Facebook was so fine tuned that I could, for example, for 1/100th of the cost or so as on Google, send ads only to potential clients who had just referenced my largest competitor, who were of a certain age, income level (yeah right, everyone lies about this), and geographic area.
Wonderful way to poach!
Never gave it much of us though because my experience on Facebook (limited as it was) on Facebook you got people wanting valuable stuff for free. Might be why Facebook advertising is so cheap. They make their money on the data selling, not their ads.
But the sort of data that would benefit me in the above referenced manner, is not the sort of data that would be controversial I do not think.
So such data like this for Shop merchants would probably continue to flow.
With Trump and Obama (who was celebrated for even taking more data in 2012), the sort of data they got was from friends of those who opted in (for Obama) who did not even know they were now in an Obama database because their friends had opened up their profiles and let Obama in, or with Trump, a third party app did a survey, and did not tell anyone what the data would be used for.
That is much different than the stuff that SHOP merchants use. So I do not see much of an impact The larger impact will be on how many users stop using or limit their usage and trust of Facebook.
Tinker
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Long SHOP, full position, saw this and since I have a little cash decided to add to SHOP. Take THAT Citron, just my opinion.
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Tobi has just Tweeted in response to the short attack.
https://twitter.com/tobi/status/978351733490495494?s=19
Ha. Even short-selling trolls are now singing our praises: “Shopify offers best in class ecommerce solutions.” If they only get the rest of their facts right…
Our 600,000+ entrepreneurs can sell on any channel they want to. If their customers want to buy via carrier pigeon, we’ll build a channel for that too. The health of any individual channel has little effect on the overall platform. Demand migrates.
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Facebook users are NOT their customers, they along with their data are their PRODUCT.
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