Online Merchant Hour Loop Opens IPO Trading

Online retailer and third-party eCommerce seller Hour Loop started trading on Nasdaq Capital Market under the ticker symbol HOUR at a per-share price of $4.50 after pricing the initial public offering (IPO) of 1.5 million shares of common stock at $4 per share, according to a press release on Thursday (Jan. 6).

EF Hutton, division of Benchmark Investments, LLC, was the sole book-running manager for the offering and Anthony L.G., PLLC is acting as legal counsel.

Hour Loop manages more than 100,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs) and has operated as a third-party seller on Amazon and Walmart, and also has been selling merchandise on its own website since 2013. The majority of its revenue comes from Amazon.

See also: AMZN vs WMT Weekly: Retail Giants Contend With COVID but Plan for Future

The company sells goods under the product categories home and garden décor, toys, kitchenware, apparel and electronics. Hour Loop uses advanced software to spot product gaps to help ensure its inventory is there year-round to meet demand, particularly during the holiday shopping season.

With the fresh capital from the IPO, Hour Loop is planning to quickly grow its business over the years by building out its business manager talent, adding additional vendors and expanding its inventory of SKUs.

Read more: How the Bring-It-To Me Economy is Set to Reshape Retail

Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, Hour Loop generated a revenue of over $31 million, with a net income of $2.3 million for the nine months ending Sept. 30, 2021, according to its filing with the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). During the same period in 2020, revenue was just under $17.5 million with a net income of $1.24 million.

The company said in the filing that among the 9.7 million sellers on Amazon, Hour Loop has “two main competitive advantages” — experienced operations and sales teams, and a proprietary software system.

“The [proprietary software system] is highly customized to our business model; it collects and processes large amounts of data every day to optimize our operation and sales,” according to the filing.