Cripplecat

A mixed quarter, at best. Last week, Etsy reported 31% non-mask GMS growth. Mask sales were ~$40M this quarter on the way to $0. Putting up 31% growth was encouraging to see compared to what was implied by their guidance last quarter. If the earnings call stopped there, the stock would have popped. Sadly, management guided to just mid-teens non-mask GMS growth in Q3, which signals clear post-COVID slow down. During the quarter, Etsy core GMS decelerated significantly from $1B to $840M a month. The new guidance implies that GMS has stabilized at >$800M per month. Now it's possible that Etsy guided conservatively and could beat this number as they did last quarter when they guided to 10% GMS growth, with one month of data to gauge the trend, and ended up growing 13%. Still 15% non-mask growth may not be good enough for its growth-oriented investors. Source: Etsy Source: Etsy, me That's a good segue into TAM saturation. Active buyers and habitual buyers were flat sequentially. ...

Etsy is a two-sided marketplace for unique and special items. As of 3Q19, it has 45 million active buyers and 2.4 million active sellers, up 21% and 17% y/y, respectively (excluding Reverb). Etsy processed $4.5B in GMS in the twelve months ending 9/30/19, growing 21% y/y. It generates revenues from listing fee (13%), transaction fee (30%), Etsy Payments (30%), and marketing and shipping services (26%). Network effect/scale and captivity characterizes its competitive advantage. Etsy stock trades on GMS growth and potential profitability. Management has a few initiatives that aim at driving growth: 1) free-shipping initiative launched in 3Q19 encouraging sellers to offer free-shipping for orders over $35; and 2) Etsy Ads launched in September 2019 to combine Promoted Listings (sellers pay Etsy to display items higher in search results) and Google Product Listing Ad (sellers pay Etsy to bid for keyword ad through Google) into one advertising platform. These initiatives are expected to gen...