Shopify revenue jumps 96% amid online shift
Company added record number of merchants to platform, luring in many with longer free trial
The flood of businesses scrambling to build or enhance their digital efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic nearly
y Inc.’s third-quarter revenue compared with a year ago.
The Ottawa-based e-commerce company said Thursday that its revenue reached $767.4 million (U.S.) in the quarter, up from $390.5 million during the same period last year.
Shopify also said it earned $191.1 million or $1.54 per diluted share in the quarter, compared with a loss of $72.8 million or 64 cents per share in the prior year.
Harley Finkelstein, who was promoted to president at the end of September, said the quarter was boosted by more brands than ever before opening their first e-commerce stores or shifting existing ones from other platforms to
Shopify as COVID-19 brought retail foot traffic to a halt and spurred temporary closures and more people staying at home.
“We believe these changes in the landscape will endure as consumers’ new shopping behaviours stick and become the new normal,” he told a conference call with financial analysts.
Those conditions helped Shopify add a record number of merchants for the second quarter in a row and a record number of them became paid subscribers.
Shopify lured many of them in with extended free trials lasting 90 days, up from the 14 days it previously offered, and some made their first sales faster than the platform has ever seen before.
The quarter, Finkelstein said, saw brands like Dior, Beyond Meat, Clif Bar, Jenny Craig and Mat and Nat join the platform and the goal is to keep growing.
“We want to capture anyone thinking of starting a business. Whether or not they become the next Gymshark or the next Allbirds remains to be seen, but the idea is that we want to capture anyone who has any ambition to start a business on Shopify,” he said.
Analysts on average had expected a profit of 53 cents per share for the quarter and $663.4 million in revenue, according to financial data firm Refinitiv.