WORDPRESS
If Shopify Passes This Test, the Stock Could Soar

For the first time in 12 years, Shopify (SHOP -4.37%) is raising prices.
The e-commerce software peddler hiked rates on its Basic, Shopify, and Advanced tiers by about 33%, leaving the most expensive Shopify Plus plan untouched at $2,000 a month.
The move comes after Shopify has been rocked by the pandemic hangover as e-commerce growth slowed dramatically last year after booming in 2020 and 2021. That was true not just for Shopify, but also peers like Amazon and Etsy.
The company has taken steps to reel in costs, issuing layoffs and finding other ways to trim expenses. As it looks for ways to grow and reinvest in the business, raising prices seems to make sense.
At a time when the stock is still down roughly 70% from the 2021 peak, the price hikes pose a major test for Shopify — one investors should pay close attention to.
Image source: Getty Images.
How wide is your moat?
Shopify has been a top-performing stock for most of its history thanks to its turbocharged revenue growth, but the company has also earned a high valuation from the market because of its perceived economic moat.
The company dominates the e-commerce software sector, serving a wide range of businesses from sole proprietors to Fortune 500 enterprises, and its customers generate roughly $200 billion in gross merchandise volume on its platform. The company fended off a challenge from Amazon, which closed its competing Amazon Webstore product several years ago, and is much larger than direct competitors like BigCommerce and WooCommerce.
That large base of customers and significant lead over its competition offers evidence for the company’s competitive advantage, and its product comes with high switching costs. Once you get set up selling, it’s costly, both in time and money, to switch to another provider.
Another way Shopify can demonstrate its competitive advantage is with pricing power. Great companies often have the ability to raise prices without significant customer loss. This might be due to a powerful brand or the sense among customers that there’s no equal substitute for the original company’s product or service. So, they simply accent a higher price when it gets passed down to them.
Shopify was a much smaller company 12 years ago, and therefore has never really tested its pricing power before.
What Shopify merchants are saying
Unsurprisingly, the Shopify price hike sparked a lively debate on Reddit’s Shopify channel, with merchants airing different opinions on the matter. Some were frustrated with the price hike, especially coming at a time when online retailers are already struggling and facing higher costs through inflation.
However, others dismissed those concerns, essentially saying that the value of Shopify was worth paying an extra $10 or $20 a month. One commenter said, “As a web dev myself with years of experience in e-commerce, I can tell you there are so many Shopify features I take for granted now as a store owner that I know were mammoth tasks in our own platforms. You won’t get a shop for that price with the same functionality and ease of use.” They also added, “I do agree the app subscriptions are a bloody rip-off though!”
A handful of commenters said they planned to switch to Block‘s Square, and others discussed alternatives like BigCommerce and WooCommerce, but most didn’t seem to consider switching in response to the price hikes. A number of commenters also seemed to defend the move, saying that Shopify’s business has been struggling and it needs more money.
Will the price hikes pay off?
It’s unclear how much Shopify’s revenue stands to increase from the move. Subscriptions made up 28% of revenue in the most recent quarter, but close to half of its gross profit. However, this isn’t a straight 33% price increase as current merchants can keep the old monthly rate by switching to a yearly plan, and they also have three months before the price hikes are implemented. New merchants will have to pay the higher prices immediately.
Still, these price increases could add at least a mid-single-digit bump to revenue, but more important is that that extra income will flow straight to the bottom line since there are no extra costs associated with it.
That will give Shopify more money to reinvest in the business and could also give the stock a boost by padding the bottom line.
Investors will learn more about the price hike’s impact over the coming quarters, but if the move is successful, Shopify could start increasing prices more regularly, possibly every few years, giving it an additional lever to pull as it grows the bottom line.
If the company can clearly demonstrate its pricing power and give a jolt to the bottom line at the same time, the stock could soar in response.
John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Jeremy Bowman has positions in Amazon.com, Block, Etsy, and Shopify. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon.com, BigCommerce, Block, Etsy, and Shopify. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2023 $1,140 calls on Shopify and short January 2023 $1,160 calls on Shopify. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
WORDPRESS
Internal Linking for SEO: The Ultimate Guide of Best Practices

Are you looking for the best practices to maximize the SEO benefits of internal links?Internal links play an important role in search engine …
Source link
WORDPRESS
How to Sell Audiobooks Online (3 Simple & Easy Ways)

Do you want to sell audiobooks online?By selling your books as downloadable audio files, you can make money without having to pay for shipping or …
Source link
WORDPRESS
Work with us as a publishing assistant – Like the Wind Magazine
EDIT: Applications now closed.
Like the Wind is unique in the world of running magazines: it’s a title that, since its first quarterly issue more than nine years ago, has focused on long-form storytelling – enhanced by high-quality photography and illustration – to explore the culture of running. Initially a labour of love for founding husband-and-wife team Julie and Simon Freeman, the magazine was for many years propelled forward by volunteers who saw the same potential in its transformative power as the co-founders did in February 2014.
The vision was always to go beyond the magazine and into the community with events and products. With limited-edition prints, T-shirts and accessories, sold-out film nights, street art running tours in Europe and our yearly UTMB after-party, we’re keen to keep the momentum going and do much, much more. Alongside Julie and Simon, the team has grown to include a co-editor (Imogen, UK), a production manager (Laura, USA), a designer (Alex, Australia), and ad-hoc freelance marketing support.
With many exciting projects in store for 2023-2024, the magazine needs more hands and fresh energy to get to the next step. In March 2023, we’re recruiting:
Publishing assistant – part-time, remote
About the position:
We’re looking for a publishing assistant to support our editorial team and our operations. The role covers customer support, reporting, orders and supplier management – but also more creative work such as publishing content, supporting events, liaising with our contributors and helping with our merchandising. We also work with external clients, such as parkrun, The North Face and On, and those projects also regularly require support.
Currently the role is 8-12 hours per week, depending on the workload/projects/magazine schedule. To start with, we are looking for someone who can offer at least three hours, three times a week (during GMT/CET working hours), with some flexibility week on week, depending on workload.
This is what the role looks like right now, supporting our current projects and team members, but there is the scope for it to be extended.
- Day-to-day order management (processing customer orders, liaising with our suppliers and international distributors, processing refunds, answering customer questions)
- E-commerce management: updating and creating new products in our shops (WooCommerce, WooSubscriptions, Gelato, FB/IG)
- Customer enquiries (e-mail, Mailchimp, social channels)
- Monthly VAT returns and sales reporting (if you can create a new reporting dashboard for us, that’d be great!)
- Contributor management (keeping track of writers, photographers and illustrators), including payments
- Support for our editorial team: researching topics, organising interviews, co-ordinating sign-offs, liaison with contributors
- Content management: re-purposing magazine content for our blog, newsletter and social channels
- Occasional, ad-hoc work – which may include:
- Managing our royalties and affiliate programmes
- Support with events co-ordination
- Support with market research
- Support with merchandising (yearly subscriber gifts, new apparel/prints/merch, new brands/artists collaborations etc)
- Support with client projects (we undertake publishing work for other brands, such as parkrun)
This position is open to people with varying levels of experience and the potential pay reflects this, ranging from £11.50 per hour for someone new to this work to £19.50 per hour for someone with a higher level of experience. LtW is committed to correcting industry pay disparities and providing opportunities for people from groups who are currently under-represented within the publishing industry. We will not ask for your current or expected salary during the initial application process. Instead, we will work with shortlisted candidates to reach an understanding of what is appropriate compensation based on their experience and training requirements.
About you:
This role is equally suited to someone at the start of their career looking to get a start in a sports business as it is to someone with experience, looking for a longer-term job. It is location-independent, but we do ask that you mostly work during CET (ideally afternoon) working hours, as we collaborate on Slack a lot as a team 🙂 Salary will be tailored to experience.
- You’re a runner 🙂 It doesn’t matter how (far or fast) you run, but we’ll definitely ask you why you run.
- You’re proactive and curious – you like looking for solutions
- You’re super-organised (we’ll occasionally need you to remind the rest of the team to do stuff!)
- You’re fluent in English and have impeccable spelling and grammar
- You’re passionate about attention to detail, you love numbers and you have a good command of Excel
- You’re experienced in online and e-mail support in a direct-to-consumer business
- You have experience in online content management (blog, socials)
- If you also have these skills, that would be a plus (but they’re not a deal-breaker):
- Experience with WooCommerce
- Experience with Mailchimp and Klaviyo
How to apply:
Please fill in this form by 8 March. But don’t delay… we will start organising interviews as soon as we receive the first responses.
-
SEARCHENGINES7 days ago
Google Says Ignore Spammy Referral Traffic
-
MARKETING6 days ago
12 Best Practices to Boost Your TikTok Ad Performance
-
MARKETING7 days ago
A treatise on e-commerce data security and compliance
-
AMAZON2 days ago
The Top 10 Benefits of Amazon AWS Lightsail: Why It’s a Great Choice for Businesses
-
WORDPRESS7 days ago
How to Automatically Add WordPress Products in Google Shopping
-
SEO7 days ago
10 Websites That Tried to Fool Google (And Failed)
-
WORDPRESS4 days ago
The best web hosting solutions for your personal webpage or business site
-
SOCIAL7 days ago
Meta’s Shelving the Last Elements of its Social Audio Push