📦 The Order : Weekly Roundup - Shopify Q2, Pitney Bowes & Albertsons

Issue #175

Happy Sunday,

Here’s a quick roundup of last week’s news :

Bullet Point Cleanup — Cleanup by Aug 15 to avoid suppressions

Amazon has announced a clamp down on emojis, warranty claims and other bullet point variations — to avoid costly suppressions. Take action early this week (or ping Autopilot to do that at scale through automation). More details in this Linkedin post.

Shopify’s Strong Q4

Shopify reported a strong quarter this week (full details).

Visualization from Alphastreet summary.

Q2 Highlights (vs Q3 2023)

• Gross Merchandise Volume¹ ("GMV") increased 22% to $67.2 billion

• Revenue increased 21% to $2.0 billion, which translates into year-over-year growth of 25% after adjusting for the sale of our logistics businesses

• Merchant Solutions revenue increased 19% to $1.5 billion, driven primarily by the growth of GMV and continued penetration of Shopify Payments

• Gross Payments Volume² ("GPV") grew to $41.1 billion, representing 61% of GMV processed in the quarter, versus $31.7 billion, or 58%

• Subscription Solutions revenue increased 27% to $563 million, driven by growth in the number of merchants and pricing increases on our subscription plans

• Monthly Recurring Revenue³ ("MRR") as of June 30, 2024 increased 25% to $169 million, driven by growth in merchants. Shopify Plus contributed $52 million, or 31%, of MRR

• Gross profit dollars grew 25% to $1.0 billion. Gross margin for the quarter was 51.1% compared to 49.3%, driven primarily by the lack of the dilutive impact of the logistics businesses and changes in pricing plans partially offset by continued growth of payments

• Free cash flow⁴ was $333 million compared to free cash flow of $97 million

• Free cash flow margin⁴ for the quarter was 16% compared to free cash flow margin of 6%

• Cash and marketable securities were $5.0 billion as of June 30, 2024, and we had a net cash position of $4.1 billion after consideration of our outstanding convertible notes

Movers & Shakers 🙌

• Shaken up: “Pitney Bowes to Liquidate Ecommerce Unit in Bankruptcy” [Bloomberg]

• Albertsons and Instacart expand e-commerce partnership [Supply Chain Dive]

Strategy 🦈

• Amazon is fumbling in India [TechCrunch]

• Shopify Quarterly Sales, Profit Beat Estimates; Shares Surge [Bloomberg]

• Made-in-China Goes Upscale as a New Generation of Brands Battles Slowdown [Bloomberg]

• JD.com’s founder ‘still running’ ecommerce group from overseas [Financial Times]

• Quick commerce push in India: “D2C brands queue up for ‘Minutes’ on Flipkart” [Exchange4Media]

• TikTok Lays the Groundwork for More European Ecommerce [The Information]

• Reid Hofmann’s Possibe Podcast with U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on AI, Government & Commerce [via Linkedin]

• Hey Dude to pay $1.95M to the FTC over shipping delays, other violations [Modern Retail]

Job Opportunity 👩‍🚀

• Operations Specialist - Amazon Automation Control Center ]with Autopilot]

Events 🎤

• Amazon Accelerate, Sep 17-19 in Seattle

• Amazon unBoxed, Oct 14-16 in Austin

Make this week count 🙌

Christian