Growth stocks have borne the brunt of much of the volatility afflicting the market over the last year, as investors shied away from these businesses amid fears of a global recession. Uncertainty about the promise of the growth stories of many pandemic favorites has also been a factor here. 

However, great businesses with sustainable moats and continued growth opportunity are still abundant in this group of stocks. For investors with the risk tolerance and patience to put cash into these businesses, this fortitude can be rewarded over the long run. 

Here are two such businesses to consider adding to your buy basket right now. 

1. Shopify 

Shopify (SHOP 0.64%) has made a lot of changes recently to increase its core competitive edge in its industry -- one in which it remains one of the world's leading platforms on which to build and launch a business -- while working to divest itself of excess drains on its balance sheet.

One change that the company announced in recent months was an increase to its prices for its three core subscriptions (Basic, Shopify, and Advanced), which went into effect in January for new merchants and April for long-standing ones.  

Shopify has also unleashed a series of new tools recently to help merchants remain competitive, including an artificial intelligence-based shopping tool that enables more accurate and enhanced product recommendations. The company also made a series of cost-cutting maneuvers, which, as has been the tenor of things with many businesses recently, included a workforce reduction.

However, the biggest change that seems to have caught investors' attention and announced in the company's first-quarter earnings report was the surprise sale of its logistics business (including Deliverr, which it just acquired last spring) to Flexport. The terms of the deal include Shopify obtaining a 13% stake in Flexport, while the business remains its preferred logistics partner.  

While this surprised me as much as it did many shareholders, the sale of this capital-heavy group of assets makes sense, particularly given the operating environment and Shopify's desire to remain competitive over the long term.

While the response was mixed when Shopify originally bought Deliverr, at the time, I was intrigued by the company's build-out of its logistics network. The improved logistics network was already delivering efficiency in shipping and processing times for merchants in the early days following that acquisition, a vital element for the small and large businesses operating on Shopify's platform to retain and grow their respective customer bases.

However, this new deal seems like the best of both worlds for Shopify and its merchants. With its logistics assets sold off and Flexport remaining its preferred logistics partner, the company can ensure that its merchants retain access to the same seamless fulfillment processes at a fraction of the cost to Shopify. Although it's still early days in terms of the impact of some of Shopify's recent initiatives, these changes already seem to be paying off. 

The most recent quarter was one of impressive revenue growth, and even a return to profitability. Revenue totaled $1.5 billion in the first quarter of 2023, up 25% year over year and driven by a 31% increase in merchant solutions revenue and an 11% increase in subscription solutions revenue. The company reported positive free cash flow of $86 million, compared to -$41 million in the year-ago period, while net income for the three-month window totaled $68 million, compared to a $1.5 billion net loss in the prior-year period.  

While investors will want to see the company work back toward a track record of steady profitability, Shopify looks like it still has plenty of room to run. That the e-commerce giant is witnessing this level of growth in a time when consumer spending is so in flux could also be a welcome signal of its long-term recovery in healthier economic conditions. 

2. Etsy 

Etsy (ETSY 0.08%) has amassed a notable presence in a broad, growing segment of the multitrillion-dollar e-commerce industry. Its family of brands, which include the Etsy marketplace, musical instrument marketplace Reverb, Brazilian e-commerce company El07, and the popular Gen Z clothing resale marketplace Depop, all operate within this segment that revolves around unique, handmade, secondhand, vintage, or otherwise specialty items. 

Management estimates that this space could represent a total addressable market of upward of $2 trillion, with the online portion of this space worth about $466 billion. Even though few companies operate in this market at the scale that Etsy does, the company estimates that it has a penetration rate of just around 3%. Etsy's singular presence in this space and its still-low level of penetration of its extensive total addressable market mean that it hasn't come remotely close to realizing its long-term growth potential.  

The Etsy marketplace reported gross merchandise sales of $2.7 billion in the most recent quarter, down slightly year over year, but that figure was up a whopping 164% on a four-year clip. Etsy closed out the first quarter of 2023 with around 96 million active buyers across its family of brands and 8 million active sellers.

About 90 million of those active buyers were derived from the Etsy marketplace. That figure was up 119% on a four-year basis.  

And the Etsy marketplace's cohorts of repeat and habitual buyers (these are people who spent $200 or more on six or more days in the trailing-12-month period) were up 149% and 238%, respectively, from four years ago. In short, people are continuing to not only spend money on the platform but are flocking to it as a means of earning a second income or even replacing one in the current economic environment.  

Etsy also became profitable again in the first quarter of 2023. Its net income of $75 million was up 136% from the bottom-line figure that it reported in the same quarter four years ago.

Any company with exposure to discretionary spending could struggle if a full-fledged recession happens. However, Etsy seems to be well positioned in its industry for long-term expansion. As it builds out its family of brands, its continued business successes in an otherwise volatile macro period look to be a good sign for the future of the growth stock and its shareholders.