Shares of Shopify plunged Wednesday after the Canadian company that helps retailers with online sales warned of easing revenue growth and thinner margins in the current quarter.

That caught a lot of investors off guard after the company rebounded strongly from the pandemic and started 2024 with a bang.

Shopify Inc. predicts that revenue will climb by a high-teens percentage rate for the second quarter, well below the 23% jump in the first quarter.

The e-commerce company anticipates quarterly gross margin will decrease by about 50 basis points compared with the first quarter, when that measured 51.4%.

Shares slid 19.5% in afternoon trading, a bit of a recovery after having been down more than 21% earlier.

For the first quarter, Shopify reported an adjusted profit of 20 cents per share on revenue of $1.86 billion. Analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research expected a profit of 16 cents per share on revenue of $1.84 billion.