Shopify is in vogue as brands grow increasingly interested in the e-commerce platform, according to Deutsche Bank. Analyst Bhavin Shah upgraded the e-commerce stock to buy from hold. Shah also raised his price target by $10 to $50, which implies a 23.5% upside from where Shopify closed Friday. He pointed to Mattel and Supreme as two examples of brands whose presences are helping Shopify outpace the broader U.S. e-commerce ecosystem. “Many leading brands are now actively looking to migrate or are in the process of migrating over from legacy/competing solutions and we note this is in sharp contrast to our conversations over the last twelve months which consistently highlighted the pace of migrations slowing,” Shah said in a Sunday note to clients. Shopify gained more than 3% in premarket trading and is up 16.6% in 2023. The stock plummeted 74.8% in 2022. Shah said one of the biggest potential catalysts for the stock is the launch of Commerce Components, which allows large retailers to pay for access to Shopify’s software, as it could prompt an increase in migrations to the platform. He also said the stock could be helped by what he called a “maturing” partner network, which has in turn helped its reputation with large retailers, increased brand awareness and increased deployment and adoption of Shopify. Shah expects gross merchandise value to have an upside of 9% in the fourth quarter compared with consensus expectations, but upside will be “more subdued” on the buyer side in 2023 given the mild recession expected. The pace of operating expense growth is also expected to cool in 2023, Shah said. Still, he said a deeper recession, more corporate spending or Amazon ‘s Buy with Prime offering biting into the merchant base could all impact these expectations for the year ahead. Shopify is expected to report fourth-quarter earnings Feb. 15. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
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