Aegis Capital's Q4 Tracker Is Largely Favorable For Shutterfly

Aegis Capital's final Q4 tracker indicates that the environment was “largely less promotional” this year than what it had been in the previous year. Given the favorable backdrop, Shutterfly, Inc. SFLY is likely to exceed the consensus estimates for 4Q, analyst Victor Anthony said in a report.

Anthony maintains a Buy rating on the company, with a price target of $62. He mentioned that the Shutterfly brand had maintained its top rankings for paid search and natural search results throughout the quarter, as it had done last year. For iOS, the Shutterfly brand app downloads, monthly average users and daily average users had risen in each of the months in the quarter.

The Shutterfly app downloads came in five times higher than the downloads recorded by the next biggest competitor, Snapfish.

Promotions This Week

The core Shutterfly brand is offering a 50 percent site-wide discount, consistent with its promotion last year. Tiny Prints, which is owned by Shutterfly, is offering a 40 percent site-wide discount, versus 25 percent last year, but consistent with last week's offer, Anthony stated.

MyPublisher, also owned by Shutterfly, is offering a 60 percent discount on photobooks, versus 70 percent last year, but consistent with last week's offer.

Snapfish is offering a 50 percent site-wide discount, consistent with last year's offer. It is offering 70 percent off on photobooks through a Google search ad, using a different code, similar to last week.

“Zazzle's 20 percent site-wide offer is consistent with last year's. Minted is offering 20 percent off on holiday cards, slightly higher than the 15 percent from last year but similar to last week. CardsDirect's discount of 10 percent is consistent with what we saw last year and last week,” the analyst wrote.