https://squareup.com/news/square-to-acquire-weebly
$365 million in cash and stock seems like a pretty good deal.
I love Square – always onward and upward!
Bear
3 Likes
Your crush (Square CFO Sarah Friar) is excited, Bear.
https://twitter.com/thefriley/status/989610407122714624?s=19…
3 Likes
Seems like a big push towards e-commerce by Square. From the press release:
Weebly is a San Francisco–based technology company that provides customers with tools to easily build a professional website or online store. Square and Weebly will give sellers one cohesive solution to start or grow an omnichannel business. Today, it is important that sellers can reach buyers as they move between channels (in person, online, in apps) during discovery, purchase, and even returns and exchanges. An integrated suite of services will make critical business tasks like engaging with customers, managing orders, growing sales, and making informed business decisions easier than ever for sellers.
“Square and Weebly share a passion for empowering and celebrating entrepreneurs,” said Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square. “Square began its journey with in-person solutions while Weebly began its journey online. Since then, we’ve both been building services to bridge these channels, and we can go even further and faster together.”
“Omnichannel commerce is our top focus area in 2018,” said Alyssa Henry, Seller Lead at Square. “From managing orders, appointments, and payments to building a website, running a business is complex, and entrepreneurs around the world want powerful and intuitive tools. Whether they’re an artist, a winemaker, or a hairdresser, with Square and Weebly sellers will have one cohesive solution to build their business.”
From https://squareup.com/about/investors/press/6ee0a591-ff57-41e…
The deal was for $365M in both cash and shares. In my two minutes of research I’ve done since finding out about this deal, it appears Weebly gives tools to online merchants for their websites. Take a look at its site: https://www.weebly.com/
According to G2, its competitors include Hubspot, Squarespace, Word Press, and Wix: https://www.g2crowd.com/products/weebly/competitors/alternat…
Which, if you ask me, they should’ve just acquired Squarespace, then they would barely have had to change the name and signs on the door 
Matt
Long SQ
MasterCard (MA), PayPal (PYPL), Skechers (SKX) and Square (SQ) Ticker Guide
See all my holdings at http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFCochrane/info.aspx
3 Likes
Any thoughts on whether this will be a Shopify competitor?
1 Like
Square acquired Weebly to buy cross selling customers who they can sell their credit systems and other business products to. Of course they will promote the web building service as well, to attract more potential clients to sell into.
But look at it this way, Square bought out (as a premium or fire sale, depending on the circumstances, either way it says something) Weebly for less than 1/30th the value of SHOP.
That is less than 1/30th!
Weebly ain’t no SHOP competitor. Weebly is a client acquisition vehicle to cross sell into.
I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me but it looks like around $550 per each customer on the service, and this will improve over time as the service attracts more customers to cross sell into.
Only the MBAs know if this makes financial sense or not. I assume they have calculated this acquisition to the last decimal digit.
It is a standard practice in competitive markets like this as client acquisition costs start to rise. It becomes cheaper to buy clients than to market to them (or at least no more expensive).
Tinker
15 Likes
Any thoughts on whether this will be a Shopify competitor?
I dont’ have any actual data to back this up, just anecdotal observations…But it seems to me like SHOP and SQ are after the same market. Providing back-end services (web presence, payments, financial services, shipping partnerships etc.) to small to mid-sized businesses so that they can better compete in an online world dominated by Amazon. This Weebly acquisition reinforces that for me a bit.
Reminds in a way about the Netflix/HBO “rivalry”. Reed Hastings was quoted serveral years ago saying that he wanted Netflix to become HBO before HBO could become Netflix (or something like that). In this comparison it seems that SQ is the NFLX here and is coming after SHOP.
I’m long both companies.
2 Likes
They could still buy Squarespace. I’m really excited to watch Jack Dorsey execute his vision.
Peace,
Dana