Shopify (SHOP) suspends financial expectations provided for full year 2020

Shopify Inc. (NYSE: SHOP)(TSX: SHOP), a leading global commerce company, today provided a business update relating to the impact of COVID-19.

Shopify has been closely monitoring and assessing the impact of COVID-19, prioritizing the health of our employees, our merchants and their customers, our partners, and our communities. In response, we have taken a number of actions to support our merchants and protect our stakeholders during this time, including initiatives focused on helping merchants transition to emerging social distancing norms. These include:

• Extended 90-day free trial to all new standard plan signups
• Gift cards available on all plans and for all merchants
• Local in-store/curbside pickup and delivery for POS merchants
• A $200 million commitment for Shopify Capital while fast-tracking expansion to core geographies working with partners and governments, including in the United Kingdom where Shopify Capital launched on March 30, 2020
• Multiple online resources to support merchants, including resources on where to secure government funding and where to find community forums, live webinars, online meetups, and tutorials to help all merchants have an online presence

Shopify continues to develop additional solutions to support our merchants and communities. More details can be found at www.shopify.com/covid19.

Data Insights

Shopify is analyzing the data across its platform for insights into how COVID-19 is affecting merchants’ operations in order to provide the most effective support, as well as to inform our own planning and decision-making during this period. Some of the changes relative to patterns prior to March 8, 2020 include the following:

• Early signs indicate brick-and-mortar businesses, impacted by the dropoff of foot traffic resulting from stay-at-home policies, are pivoting to online as consumer demand shifts.
• Merchants are heavily leveraging discounts to boost sales.
• Sales trends are aligning to specific industries based on the evolving environment, consumer concerns and needs.
• In March, we terminated thousands of merchants charging unfair prices or making false claims about COVID-19-related items such as face masks or hand sanitizers.

Financial Outlook

Shopify ended 2019 with momentum that continued into January and February of 2020. This will enable us to report revenue and adjusted operating income for the first quarter within or ahead of the range of expectations provided on February 12, 2020, despite the global economic disruption that emerged in March triggered by COVID-19.

Given the uncertainty surrounding the duration and magnitude of COVID-19, Shopify is suspending the financial expectations provided for full year 2020. Shopify plans to announce financial results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2020 before markets open on Wednesday, May 6, 2020.

Shopify’s management team will host a conference call to discuss first-quarter results and to provide further updates on the COVID-19 impact on its first-quarter earnings call at 8:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, May 6, 2020. The conference will be available via webcast on the investor relations section of Shopify’s website at https://investors.shopify.com/news-and-events/default.aspx#upcoming-events.

An archived replay of the webcast will be available following the conclusion of the call.

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