Pandemic Trends to Continue, Says Shopify

Q4 revenue at Shopify spiked 94% to $977.7 million, reported the company Wednesday. At the end of 2020, 1.7 million merchants were selling on the e-commerce platform, said President Harley Finkelstein on a quarterly call. Responding to a question on whether the growth in business creation spawned by COVID-19 is sustainable, Finkelstein noted the U.S. had more business registrations in Q3 than at any time since 2004 and said Shopify is seeing similar. The pandemic created a "catalyst," whether people needed to supplement their income or lost a job and needed to find something else, but “I do not think this trend is going away.” As countries roll out vaccines in 2021 and consumers are able to move about more freely, “the overall economic environment will likely improve,” said Chief Financial Officer Amy Shapero. Some consumer spending “will likely rotate back to offline retail and services," and the shift to e-commerce, which accelerated in 2020, "will likely resume a more normalized pace of growth,” said Shapero.