Shopify Web Traffic Suggests Weakness: Q2 Preview

Weakening monthly visits to shopify.com and weaker referral traffic along with tepid sign-ups are a sign of concern in upcoming quarters. Less traffic to Shopify’s main web page implies that demand for the service is weakening. Second quarter traffic to Shopify.com declined 5%, year over year. Shopify reports Q2 results on July 27.

Key takeaways

• Visits to shopify.com fell 5% year over year, and only grew 1.4% versus Q1. After reaching highs of about 79.5 million monthly visitors during the height of the pandemic in August 2020, monthly web visits in June 2022 were 55.07 million, a drop of 31% from the pandemic peak.
• Traffic to Shopify’s signups page rose only 0.4% versus the prior year, signaling a potential revenue slowdown in upcoming periods and potentially lower customer engagement
• Referral traffic declined in Q2, which could be a sign of less partner engagement or less end-user engagement at Shopify customers’ own pages. Either way, a decline in traffic could lead to lower revenues over time

Monthly Visits could provide clarity into Q2 Gross Merchandising Revenue (GMR) trends

Monthly visits to shopify.com were down 5% year over year. Falling traffic could be due to worries about inflation, the risk of inflation, and falling consumer confidence. These negative trends could impact GMR in Q2 and the second half of 2022.

Traffic to the Signup Page Increased in Q2, but not significantly

Signups to Shopify are likely a leading indicator of future revenue performance and Similarweb data shows a negative trend here. Signup traffic to Shopify’s signup page in Q2 grew only 0.4% on a year-over-year basis. Whether it be a weaker economic environment or a problem with the company’s customer engagement, the data clearly shows a slowdown in new customer additions.

July traffic starting out slower as well

A look at worldwide daily traffic to shopify.com for the month of July (through July 24) shows that total traffic on an apples-to-apples basis was down 1.6%, a continuation of the trends the company’s website experienced in Q2. It looks like Q3 is starting out weak as well.

Referral Traffic Down

Referral traffic is web traffic that comes from other sources. Shopify gets 26.3% of its total web traffic from referrals. Referring traffic is clearly an important part of the story for Shopify, so trends over time are important to look at.

Referring traffic fell 1.7% in April rose a modest 1.9% in May and fell 10.2% in June, year over year. This seems to imply that Shopify may have been impacted during the quarter by economic pressures, inflation concerns, or less customer engagement. This could impact GMR in Q2 and potentially in the second half of the year as well.

Data tells a story of a potential slowdown

Weakening web traffic and referral traffic along with tepid sign ups is a sign for concern in upcoming quarters.

The Similarweb Insights Newsroom is available to pull additional or updated data on request for the news media (journalists are invited to write to press@similarweb.com). When citing our data, please reference Similarweb as the source and link back to the most relevant blog post or similarweb.com/blog/insights/.

Methodology

Disclaimer: All data, reports and other materials provided or made available by Similarweb are based on data obtained from third parties, including estimations and extrapolations based on such data. Similarweb shall not be responsible for the accuracy of the materials and shall have no liability for any decision by any third party based in whole or in part on the materials.

by Jim Corridore

Senior Analyst

Jim provides insights across multiple sectors. With 30 years on Wall Street and numerous awards for stock-picking, he is a SUNY Albany graduate.