Although Twitter bombed on its first trading day even it it generated a lot of buzz prior to its debut, Zulily managed to steal the micro-messaging company's thunder this week. In its first day of trading, shares of the children's apparel retailer jumped 71%. Zulily, pricing its offered shares at USD22 apiece, closed the first trading day at USD37.70 on Friday.
Zulily had not been disappointing its investors from the very beginning. With its daily, limited-time flash deals online expected on a modern-day sales outlet, the multimedia financial-services company Motley Fool said Zulily was able to make money as an early-stage company unlike Twitter. Twitter boasted its 500 million customer base as of 2012, but has yet to earn money since its establishment in 2006. Founded in 2009, Zulily saw its sales jump from USD18 million in its 2010 fiscal year to USD143 million the next year, and then recorded a yearly revenue of USD331 million last year. This was a whopping 132% increase from 2011 sales. For the first nine months of this year, Zulily had managed to surpass its net sales from last year by recording net sales of around USD439 million. Should one like to compare Twitter's sales, the latter failed to even impress at USD422 million in the same period.
Motley Fool said Zulily might have found its strength as a niche retailer in an already saturated market with dominating players like Amazon and Target. Moreover, Motley Fool pointed out that Zulily being in the retail sector also contributed to the company's success in its public debut.
"Zulily is the kind of company and the sort of stock that attracts fans, and that bullish feeling gives it a good chance for its shares to rise higher in their first full week of trading. Further along the forest path, if the company can continue to fatten that top line and keep its net in the black, it should be able to stay popular and -- hopefully for its investors -- grow that stock price," Motley Fool wrote.
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