And a belated Happy Thanksgiving to all my American fellow board members.
Some incredible numbers this morning from Shopify and the weekend is still not over, not to mention the implications for all holiday shopping for here to Christmas:
“Shopify-powered businesses saw a 75% increase in sales from Black Friday in 2019. In fact, by 8:00am EST, merchants on Shopify collectively had crossed $1 billion in sales.”
“We’re thrilled with the Black Friday sales generated by the businesses on Shopify. In just a single day, merchants around the world produced more than 80% of the sales of the entire holiday shopping weekend last year,” said Harley Finkelstein, President of Shopify. “With more consumers than ever shopping online this year, we anticipate this weekend being one of the biggest ecommerce events in history, as consumers vote with their wallets and support the independent and direct-to-consumer businesses they love.”
While Shopify is not discussed much on this board, I wonder what positive impacts this may have for some of our other high growth pics that help power Shopify like CRWD and NET…
interesting Rita. Last year they increased BFCM sales by 3x whilst the Shopify revenues were growing at 50%. This year they announce 75% BF sales increase of 75% whilst Shopify revenues have been growing at 100%.
I’d say this constitutes a disappointment if anything but I don’t have much to go on.
“Over one million merchants on Shopify set records once again this Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend. From the start of Black Friday in New Zealand, through the end of Cyber Monday in California, our merchants across more than 175 countries sold $2.9+ billion, up from last year’s $1.8+ billion^”
This equates to a 61% increase in sales over the entire weekend.
This was from a Dec. 3, 2019 press release on the Shopify website.
Adobe said black friday sales was 22% higher than last year. consider size and reach of Shopify to global merchants today, I will take 75%, 3.5 times of market growth, at a heartbeat.
I’d say this constitutes a disappointment if anything but I don’t have much to go on.
I was looking at this from the angle of the last two quarters of GMV growth that were 108% and 118% (Q3 and Q2) and was originally thinking it was somewhat of a disappointment. However, then I realized that Black Friday has extended from one day to about one month. This should be a boon for Shopify even if the growth number on BF didn’t equal recent growth rates.
I tend to think it will still be a monster quarter for Shopify.
I’m also following SHOP closely and recently added as growth reaccelerated and brought the company back in line with Saul standards.
This NYT article is helpful in articulating company culture, long-term vision, and how TAM might evolve as leadership figures out the next phase:
“Can Shopify Compete With Amazon Without Becoming Amazon?” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/magazine/shopify.html