Mixed quarter. Slightly disappointing guidance, and some word of caution for even beyond 3Q’21.
We have entered the treacherous stage for Covid beneficiary stocks, and the broader picture may remain a bit hazy for quite some time.
Here are my notes.
2/ For the past 5 quarters, Etsy comfortably beat high end of GMS guidance. Not this time even though it spent 31.7% of revenue in Sales & Marketing (+491 bps YoY) in 2Q’21.
3/ # of sellers sequentially increased by 531K QoQ which is really impressive. For context, it took Etsy 4 quarters pre-pandemic to add 587K sellers.
Many one-off mask buyers left which stalled # of buyers.
4/ Etsy still added 8 mn new buyers in the quarter vs ~4 mn they were adding pre-pandemic. GMS per new buyer is also accelerating at a much faster rate.
5/ Slightly disappointing to see # of habitual buyers, who are just 9% of active buyers but drive 40% of GMS, not increase sequentially in this quarter.
Buyer retention is consistently ~500 bps higher pre-pandemic levels which calm my nerves.
GMS per active buyer +22%
6/ One metric I would suggest @jgsilverman to provide is how many habitual buyers are buying from multiple categories.
As a shareholder, I would like to see buyers coming back to Etsy for different category of products.
7/ Etsy launched XWalk, Large-scale, real-time graph retrieval engine that provides more relevant search results and narrows the semantic gap, boosting conversion and repeat purchase rate for buyers.
Xwalk reduced the number of dead ends (queries with 0 search result) by >1 mn.
8/ The product experience has improved significantly.
“While we aren't in a race to be fastest, it's critical that we have transparent expectations that our
sellers can meet reliably.”
9/ Last week, Etsy launched Star Seller program. I really like this initiative as it sets clear expectation what it means to be a good seller on Etsy.
“We believe this creates a race to the top for sellers”
10/ “We focused on organic product improvements and to date, have invested very few marketing dollars to drive app downloads.”
Etsy started to prompt buyers to download the app, which is highest converting experience, in Q2 which is showing results.
11/ Today, Etsy calls itself House of Brands with Reverb, Depop, Elo7 in addition to the core Etsy brand.
“…we think Depop is potentially to Etsy like Venmo was to PayPal, a new way to shop for the new generation”
12/ “We now have a foothold in Latin America, a region with high barriers to entry where we previously did not have a meaningful customer base.”
Josh seems to think Brazil is a tough market to crack from his eBay experience and hence preferred a native brand Elo7 to enter LATAM.
13/ “will take multiple quarters and years to operationalize all of the many ways that we believe we can help Depop and Elo7 grow.”
“We launched a new premium ad platform for Bump" (on Reverb)
14/ Some ways Etsy can help optimize the acquisitions over time.
15/ International continues to outpace US GMS growth and now 41% of overall GMS.
16/ One of the drivers for increased S&M is Etsy’s focus on top-of-the-funnel marketing.
Long-term, I think it’s the right strategy even if it decreases margins in the short-term.
17/ In 1Q’21, Etsy did not buyback any share, and when stock went down 40% from the peak, I wondered whether Etsy will buyback in 2Q’21. They did. Etsy repurchased $180 Mn shares (SBC ~$48 mn).
I always enjoy reading IAC shareholder letter and this was no exception. Q&A, however, gets a bit too lengthy and repetitive.
Here are my notes.
2/ ANGI
“They say home improvement projects usually take twice as long and cost twice as much relative to expectations going in, and one of our goals at Angi is to prove that axiom false. Ironically, delivering that proof appears to be, well, taking us longer and costing us more"
3/ “Exercising options creates the most attention, but creating options builds the most value.”
@mjmauboussin and Dan Callahan published another piece on valuation defending the use of DCF model.
Here are some interesting quotes from the piece.
2/ "Whenever investors value a stake in a cash-generating asset, they should recognize that they are using a discounted cash flow (DCF) model."
3/ "A speculator, who buys a stock in anticipation that it will go up without reference to its value. Investors and speculators have always coexisted in markets, and the behavior of many market participants is a blend of the two. But it is useful to keep in mind that these are...
I have been active on fintwit for almost a year and half now. When I decided to get out of my lurking phase, I could never imagine this account could ever become such a huge part in my life.
Let me share my philosophy for building this account.
2/ I treat fintwit as my workplace. I try not to tweet something that I would not tweet if my followers were my colleagues.
3/ I do not want to get on a content treadmill which many creators seem to suffer from.
I want to create a fair amount of detachment from input and output.
We have all been whispering about tough comps for Covid beneficiary companies, and the comps were indeed quite tough.
Let’s look at segment by segment and some highlights from the call.
2/ First, here’s the breakdown of revenue by segment (both product and geography)
3/ Given 2Q’20 was the beginning of the massive pandemic tailwind, it is more instructive to see 2-yr and 3-yr CAGR to see the underlying strength of the business.
As investors kept searching for the next “Google”, it turns out you could have done pretty well betting on the real Google with YTD of ~60% or ~30% CAGR in the last 3 and 5 years.
Here are my highlights from the earnings call and quarter.
2/ Every quarter, big tech continues to bend our minds with their numbers.
Regression to the mean? Pfft.
3/ YouTube is growing at 40% and YouTube ads revenue itself was 95% of $NFLX revenue last quarter.
In 1Q’19, YouTube ads was ~67% of NFLX revenue.
YouTube is a beast, and perhaps NFLX isn’t really “big tech”!