Shutterfly goes for an IPO

Online retailing companies keep flocking to Wall Street. The latest company to file for an initial public offering is digital photo products and services retailer Shutterfly Inc.

Shutterfly hasn’t set the terms or the date of its offering, but by going public the company expects to raise more working capital and use the proceeds to purchase new equipment, upgrade its existing manufacturing facilities and evaluate acquisitions.

The company, which is using Sachs, JP Morgan, Piper Jaffray and Jeffries & Co. to underwrite and manage the IPO, turned in a solid financial performance last year, posting net income of $29 million on revenue of $89 million, compared with net income of $3.7 million on revenue of $54.5 million in 2004. Since its launch in December 1999, Shutterfly has fulfilled more than 11 million orders, sold approximately 350 million prints and stored more than 900 million photos in its image archives, the company says in its IPO registration.

Shutterfly competes in a niche against digital photo service companies such as Kodak EasyShare Gallery (formerly known as Ofoto), Snapfish, a service of Hewlett-Packard, and Sony ImageStation. Large retail chains and wholesale clubs, including Wal-Mart, Costco, CVS, Walgreen and others, also offer in-store pick-up from Internet orders. Shutterfly’s core customers are 84% female, age 25-44, mothers of young families and have annual household income greater than $70,000.

In another IPO development, web analytics developer Omniture Inc. is now trading on NASDAQ. The company went public on June 27 at $6.50 per share, down from its proposed $7.50 to $9 price range. Omniture says it will use the proceeds to expand its sales and marketing program, improve its networking infrastructure and make a software licensing payment of $4 million.