Shutterfly (SFLY): A Death Rattle From Web 2.0

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Shutterfly (SFLY) calls itself an Internet-based social expression and personal publishing service. In reality, it is a simple online photo storage, swapping, and printing service.

No matter what it is, the company is not doing very well. Its shares fell over 17% today after it announced Q1 earnings. The stock fell through its 52-week low and traded down to $12.65. The stock has been as high as $37 during the period.

Shutterfly is not growing like a Web 2.0 company. Revenue rose 29% to $34,3 million. The company forecast Q2 revenue to be up 17% to 27% to a revenue range of $35 to $38 million. In other words, no growth quarter-over-previous-quarter.

Shutterfly also displayed the uncanny ability to lose more money that it did last year. The company’s net loss went to $3.6 million from $1.1 million in the quarter a year ago.

A look at the company’s P&L shows another source of the trouble. Shutterfly is spending way too much money. Expenses rose from $17 million in Q1 last year to $28.4 million in the last quarter.

If the company is not going to grow very fast, at least it could control expenditures.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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