We have no interest in going back and forth with Shopify, we are releasing this commentary as a response to the numerous media requests we have received.

Citron understands Shopify’s platform is effective for small and medium sized businesses to launch e-commerce platforms. We never doubted they have good software for accomplishing this task.

That being said, we were unimpressed by the company’s response to Citron’s conclusion that Shopify sells business opportunities through affiliate marketers, and they depend on affiliate marketing to drive their growth metrics.

It is impossible to understand the real strength of Shopify’s core business without getting specifics of their true customer acquisition cost. To accomplish that, churn needs to be analyzed, so investors can discount or strip out the dirty/illegal part of their business that will inevitably be curbed by regulators. Immaturity and hubris of management prevents them from addressing these issues.

Investors owning a stock selling at 15x sales deserve a clear and honest answer about all aspects of the business…especially what is driving growth.

Citron has assembled a comprehensive folder, which we have forwarded to the FTC, and we are certain that the company will face an investigation for selling business opportunities.

Shareholders can just search Youtube for “Shopify” and filter for the videos posted over the past week alone. Below is a montage we found in minutes.