It's been a rocky year for Chewy ($CHWY); it's been a rocky year for a lot of IPOs after investors turned on unprofitable apps. Chewy is expected to unprofitable once again; the Floridian pet products retailer will announce earnings December 9 and analysts tracked by Zacks Investment Research are looking for EPS losses of -$0.15. Shares are down about 30% from their post-IPO peak. 

But Chewy's data isn't like the data of all those other unprofitable apps that made (or, failed to make) market debuts this year. 

Chewy is a lot better-liked than some of those other apps. Chewy's Apple ($AAPL) Store Rating Count, or how often people submit a rating, continues to rise in 2019, a sign that it's continuing to engage with new users. And, those new users, are as happy as the old ones; Chewy's Apple Store rating hovers around a perfect 5.0. 

Let's face it: often to a fault, people can't shut up about their pets on social media. Chewy's got that going in its favor, though. The company's Facebook ($FB) Talking About Count is soaring, a sign that people are probably loading up on goodies for the annual holiday season tradition of outfitting Fido in some very uncomfortable, fake felt antlers for a few quick selfies. 

Chewy LinkedIn ($MSFT) Headcount keeps growing, a sign that the company isn't cutting existing positions. And, looking at our final chart - below - we can see that Chewy job postings have fallen about 16% from their peak this summer - but that they're still up around 40% YTD. 

And that last factor is critical. The other big app IPOs that have underperformed expectations have cut job postings - and far more postings than Chewy has reduced, while still growing its workforce according to the LinkedIn data. Uber reduced 39% of its job postings from its 2019 peak; Lyft has cut 23% of its job postings.

And WeWork, which failed to make a market debut at all before falling into a rescue financing deal with Softbank and slashing thousands of paid jobs, cut more than 1,000 job postings in the process, representing a 70% decline. 

About the Data: 

Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales. 

Further Reading: 

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