John Ballard of The Motley Fool favors Shopify over Coupang for 2026, citing stronger margins and faster growth. Shopify management said AI-driven traffic and orders tripled year over year in Q2 2026, while trailing-12-month revenue was up 32.5% as of Q2.
Shopify generated about $11.6 billion in 2025 revenue, up 30%, and nearly $1.2 billion in net income, for an 11% margin. Coupang reported $34.5 billion in revenue, up 14%, but $208 million in net income and a 0.6% margin. Financial Modeling Prep figures cited in the article put Shopify at 67.7 times forward earnings and 14.4 times sales, versus 44.7 and 0.7 for Coupang; valuation figures may differ by provider.
Coupang faced a November 2025 data-security incident affecting nearly 33 million customer accounts, as well as KFTC investigations into service bundling and search rankings. Shopify faces data-privacy and copyright claims in several jurisdictions and relies on outside cloud and payment providers. Ballard says Coupang could be undervalued and points to its Taiwan expansion, but favors Shopify's longer-term growth potential.
