Equity markets are broadly failing to understand Shopify Inc.’s potential for growth, according to one investment professional. 

• Sign up to get breaking news email alerts sent directly to your inbox

“We believe Shopify is one of the most misunderstood stories in the market today,” Ivana Delevska, the founder and chief investment officer at Spear Invest, said in a television interview with BNN Bloomberg Friday. 

Many investors incorrectly view the Ottawa-based company strictly as an e-commerce platform that is largely tied to the economy, Delevska said. 

“But what they [Shopify] really are is the operating system of retailers. They just announced a new product yesterday targeting large enterprises, so they can basically make the processes of retailers more efficient with their technology,” Delevska said. 

Shopify’s new product is Commerce Components. The product will enable retailers to access Shopify’s component infrastructure, including its checkout system, according to a release from the company. 

Mattel Inc. will transition its full list of brands to Shopify through Commerce Components, according to the release. 

“We believe that [the new product] is going to be [the] core of productivity improvement and upside going forward,” Delevska said. 

Additionally, the new product from the Canadian e-commerce giant was built based on the company’s already existing technology, Delevska said. 

“So that is really the best way as an investor to get returns, where a company can use something that it has already created and apply [it] to a broad market,” she said. 

Shopify announced its new product after a year of volatility.

In July of 2022, the company laid off around 1,000 workers, roughly 10 per cent of its staff. 

The stock was also a significant drag on the S&P/TSX Composite Index in 2022. As of December, it took around 978 points off the index as it lost approximately $161 billion in market value during the year.