RealMoney: Here’s Why Shopify’s IPO Was a Winner and Etsy’s Just Fizzled
What a difference an IPO’s business can make!
Some can be fantastic performers, while every now and again we get one that flops out of the gate. Nothing captures that better than the recent IPO of online goods seller Etsy ([stock_quote symbol=”ETSY”]), which has seen the company’s shares fall more than 40% since the offering, and Shopify ([stock_quote symbol=”SHOP”]), a software that helps retailers sell goods online, that saw its shares vault higher on the first day of trading after pricing the offering at $17 per share.
At first blush you might say “oh, they both sell products online,” but that would be a mistake. While Etsy is more or less a portal that enables “people to connect, make, sell and buy products,” Shopify is the enabling software that has allowed small and medium size companies to get their business up and running on the web or mobile platforms.