An employee walks past a quilt displaying Etsy Inc. signage at the company’s headquarters in the Brooklyn.
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Etsymissed on revenue and gross merchandise sales for the fourth quarter, with the company citing “significant headwinds,” including a pullback in consumer spending. The stock slid more than 10% in morning trading Wednesday.
Here’s how the company did:
Earnings: $1.03 per share adjusted vs. 93 cents per share expected by LSEG
Revenue: $852.2 million vs. $862.8 million expected by LSEG
Gross merchandise sales, or the total volume of goods sold on the platform, came in at $3.74 billion, a decline of 6.8% year over year. Wall Street had forecast fourth-quarter GMS of $3.8 billion, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet.
The fourth quarter includes the holiday shopping period. Etsy said the GMS slump was a result of “pressure on consumer discretionary product spending,” tough comparisons due to the shortened holiday shopping season and “category mix,” as well as a competitive retail and marketing environment.
Etsy operates an online marketplace that connects buyers and sellers with mostly artisan and handcrafted goods. The company has been working to strengthen its image as a destination for unique gifts and products as it combats a fiercely competitive e-commerce market dominated by Amazon and, more recently, Chinese online retailers Temu, Shein and TikTok Shop.
Online holiday spending in November and December rose nearly 9% to $241.1 billion, topping analysts’ expectations of $240.8 billion, according to Adobe Analytics. Inflation-weary shoppers opened their wallets in search of deep discounts, but some discretionary categories like furniture, jewelry and accessories were expected to see some softness compared with toys and home decor products.
Revenue in the fourth quarter increased 1.2% to $852.2 million, compared to $842.3 million a year ago.
Net income for the fourth quarter came in at $129.9 million, or $1.17 per share, from $83.2 million, or 70 cents per share, a year ago.
Etsy also gave a downbeat outlook for the current quarter, saying it expects GMS will fall at a rate similar to the year-over-year performance it reported in the fourth quarter.
Etsy CEO Josh Silverman said on a call with investors that the company is taking a short-term hit to its GMS as it works to overhaul the site. The company has been focused less on “near-term conversion driving” in favor of improving the quality of goods and shopping experience on its site, Silverman said.
“While this resulted in real opportunity cost to GMS to the tune of at least a few hundred million dollars last year, we believe it will be well worth it as we’re now building on this improved foundation for 2025 and beyond,” Silverman told investors.
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In recent years, Etsy has been working to counter the spread of mass-produced, generic goods from resellers on its platform to get back to its roots and keep shoppers returning to the platform. It’s also launched a gifting feature to provide personalized recommendations to shoppers, along with a loyalty program.
“So while others focus on cheap and fast, we’re focusing on creativity, self-expression, and elevating artisanal items,” Silverman said. “And while others rely on mass production and complex supply chains, we are empowering our nimble and unique seller base to thrive.”
The e-commerce industry is still absorbing the impact of President Donald Trump‘s recent tariff announcements, which target a popular tax loophole used by some online retailers. Trump suspended, then reinstated, the de minimis exemption, which allows exporters to ship packages worth less than $800 into the U.S. duty-free.
The loophole is expected to be shut again once the Commerce Department and customs officials put systems in place to process and collect tariffs on the millions of de minimis packages that flow into the U.S. daily. A significant portion of those packages originate from China.
Silverman said he expects Etsy to benefit from the tariffs and de minimis restrictions, unless the Trump administration targets European countries, in which case that “could create more friction on our buyers.”
“Etsy has much less dependence on products coming in from China, vastly less dependence,” Silverman said. “So I think to the extent that we see tariffs that are very focused on China … I think at least in the near term, Etsy is a net beneficiary.”
Anne Wojcicki attends the WSJ Magazine Style & Tech Dinner in Atherton, California, on March 15, 2023.
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23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki and New Mountain Capital have submitted a proposal to take the embattled genetic testing company private, according to a Friday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Wojcicki and New Mountain have offered to acquire all of 23andMe’s outstanding shares in cash for $2.53 per share, or an equity value of approximately $74.7 million. The company’s stock closed at $2.42 on Friday with a market cap of about $65 million.
The offer comes after a turbulent year for 23andMe, with the stock losing more than 80% of its value in 2024. In January, the company announced plans to explore strategic alternatives, which could include a sale of the company or its assets, a restructuring or a business combination.
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23andMe has a special committee of independent directors in place to evaluate potential paths forward. The company appointed three new independent directors to its board in October after all seven of its previous directors abruptly resigned the prior month. The special committee has to approve Wojcicki and New Mountain’s proposal.
“We believe that our Proposal provides compelling value and immediate liquidity to the Company’s public stockholders,” Wojcicki and Matthew Holt, managing director and president of private equity at New Mountain, wrote in a letter to the special committee on Thursday.
Wojcicki previously submitted a proposal to take the company private for 40 cents per share in July, but it was rejected by the special committee, in part because the members said it lacked committed financing and did not provide a premium to the closing price at the time.
Wojcicki and New Mountain are willing to provide secured debt financing to fund 23andMe’s operations through the transaction’s closing, the filing said. New Mountain is based in New York and has $55 billion of assets under management, according to its website.
Shares of Hims & Hers Health tumbled more than 23% on Friday after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that the shortage of semaglutide injection products has been resolved.
Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk‘s blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy and diabetes treatment Ozempic. Those medications are part of a class of drugs called GLP-1s, and demand for the treatments has exploded in recent years. As a result, digital health companies such as Hims & Hers have been prescribing compounded semaglutide as an alternative for patients who are navigating volatile supply hurdles and insurance obstacles.
Compounded drugs are custom-made alternatives to brand-name drugs designed to meet a specific patient’s needs, and compounders are allowed to produce them when brand-name treatments are in shortage. The FDA doesn’t review the safety and efficacy of compounded products.
Hims & Hers began offering compounded semaglutide to patients in May, and it owns compounding pharmacies that produce the medications.
Compounded medications are typically much cheaper than their branded counterparts. Hims & Hers sells compounded semaglutide for less than $200 per month, while Ozempic and Wegovy both cost around $1,000 per month without insurance.
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The FDA said Friday that it will start taking action against compounders for violations in the next 60 to 90 days, depending on the type of facility, in order to “avoid unnecessary disruption to patient treatment.”
“Now that the FDA has determined the drug shortage for semaglutide has been resolved, we will continue to offer access to personalized treatments as allowed by law to meet patient needs,” Hims & Hers CEO Andrew Dudum posted Friday on X. “We’re also closely monitoring potential future shortages, as Novo Nordisk stated two weeks ago that it would continue to have ‘capacity limitations’ and ‘expected continued periodic supply constraints and related drug shortage notifications.'”
Him & Hers’ weight loss offerings have been a massive hit with investors. Shares of the company climbed more than 200% last year, and the stock is already up more than 100% this year despite Friday’s move.
Even before it added compounded GLP-1s to its portfolio, the company said in its 2023 fourth-quarter earnings call that it expects its weight loss program to bring in more than $100 million in revenue by the end of 2025.
Despite the turbulent regulatory landscape, Hims & Hers has showed no signs of slowing down.
On Friday, the company announced it has acquired a U.S.-based peptide facility that will “further verticalize the company’s long-term ability to deliver personalized medications.” Hims & Hers will explore advances across metabolic optimization, recovery science, biological resistances, cognitive performance and preventative health through the acquisition, the company said.
That move comes just days after Hims & Hers also bought Trybe Labs, the New Jersey-based at-home lab testing facility. Trybe Labs will allow Hims & Hers to perform at-home blood draws and more comprehensive pretreatment testing.
Hims & Hers did not disclose the terms of either deal.
Tesla models Y and 3 are displayed at a Tesla dealership in Corte Madera, California, on Dec. 20, 2024.
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Tesla is voluntarily recalling 376,241vehicles in the U.S. to correct an issue with failing power-assisted steering systems, according to records posted to the website of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
In a safety recall report posted on the NHTSA website, Tesla said the recall includes Model 3 and Model Y vehicles that were manufactured for sale in the U.S. from Feb. 28, 2023, to October 11, 2023, and that were equipped with a certain older software release.
The records said printed circuit boards in the steering systems in affected vehicles could become overstressed, causing the power-assist steering to fail in some cases when a Tesla vehicle rolled to a stop and then accelerated.
When electronic power-assist steering systems fail in a Tesla, drivers need to exert more force to steer their cars, which can increase the risk of a collision.
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Tesla told the vehicle safety regulator that it was not aware of any crashes, injuries or deaths related to the power steering failures, and that it was offering an over-the-air software update as a remedy.
The recall follows an earlier related probe and voluntary recall in China concerning the same systems.
President Donald Trump has appointed Tesla CEO Elon Musk to lead a team that is slashing the federal government workforce, and in some cases, regulations and entire agencies. Those cuts already affected the NHTSA, an agency Musk has long seen as standing in the way of some of his ambitions at Tesla.
The regulator has been engaged in a yearslong investigation into safety defects in the systems that Tesla markets currently as its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (Supervised) options. The features do not make Tesla cars into robotaxis. They require a human driver ready to steer or brake at any time.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Musk’s team has led mass firings at the NHTSA, reducing the agency’s workforce and capacity to investigate companies including Tesla by about 10%.