Shopify Signals Revenue Acceleration as AI Tools, Merchant Growth Drive 2Q Beat — 2nd Update

By Adriano Marchese

Shopify quieted fears of a mid-year slowdown, forecasting accelerating third-quarter sales growth as artificial intelligence-driven search and broad merchant expansion fuel market-share gains.

The optimistic outlook puts to rest investor anxieties that have weighed on the company after its first-quarter report, when management signaled potential topline deceleration. Instead, the ecommerce platform is guiding for revenue to grow at a low-thirties percentage rate in the third quarter, which tops Wall Street consensus of about 27% after beating second-quarter expectations.

Driving the momentum was a 32% surge in gross merchandise volume, which measures the total value of goods sold across its platform, and which reached $115.57 billion in the second quarter.

"Gross merchandise volume growth was up 32% to $116 billion with broad growth across our merchant sizes, geographies, and sales channels," President Harley Finkelstein said on the earnings call Wednesday.

Shopify, whose platform lets businesses sell, manage orders and process payments, is also seeing an early boost from AI. Finkelstein noted that AI-driven traffic and order volumes have tripled year-over-year.

"AI search was starting to disproportionately benefit the long tail in 2025, and that trend has continued, with 75% of AI attributed orders coming from outside our top 100 categories in the second quarter," Finkelstein said on the call.

Shares surged Wednesday morning by 22% to $149.52. The day's trading has walked back much of the loss from the past 52 weeks, where the stock reached a low of $94, and is now up about 14%. The stock is still down 10% year-to-date, due largely to broader software sector concerns over potential AI disruption and higher tech valuations.

The dynamic led to a 34% rise in revenue in the second quarter, reaching $3.58 billion, beating its own growth forecast of rising in the high-twenties percentage rate, and analyst forecasts which expected a growth of 29%.

The growth in revenue was driven by a strong performance across subscription solutions, where revenue rose to $802 million from $656 million, and merchant solutions, its largest unit, which generated revenue of $2.78 billion, up from $2.02 billion.

Net income rose to $1.5 billion, or $1.16 a share, up from $906 million, or 69 cents a share, in the comparable quarter a year ago. On an adjusted basis, earnings came to 42 cents a share, topping forecasts of 40 cents a share.

As well as the rosier revenue expectations for the third quarter, Shopify expects gross profit dollars to grow at a mid-to-high twenties percentage rate, while operating expenses are expected to be in the range of 33% to 34% of revenue. Free cash flow margin is expected to be in the high-teens to low-twenties.

Write to Adriano Marchese at adriano.marchese@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications

This was corrected at 1:04 p.m. ET to clarify the GMV was up 32% to $116 billion. The original version did not include the $116 billion.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 05, 2026 10:18 ET (14:18 GMT)