Wayfair grew sales 9.7% to $3.4 billion. CEO Niraj Shah called it the company's strongest quarter of growth since the pandemic. The headline rounds up to 10%. Everyone rounds up. Your résumé does too.
Shah says U.S. revenue climbed over 11% while the category stayed roughly flat. That means Wayfair is winning a race where everyone else is standing still. Congratulations to the guy who finished first in the nap.
Net income was $62 million. A year ago, Wayfair lost $99 million. That is a $161 million swing, achieved by selling people ottomans.
The stock jumped about 10% in morning trading and hit a 52-week high of $126.81. Retail traders saw green and called it a thesis. They bought a company that sells a $311 average order of end tables, and they feel like Warren Buffett.
Average order value fell from $317 to $311. Customers are spending six dollars less per order. Wayfair made it up in volume. Orders delivered rose 12.2% to 11 million. That is 11 million cardboard boxes that someone will assemble wrong with an Allen wrench and a grudge.
International revenue fell 2.3%. Nobody mentions this. Britain and Germany looked at a Wayfair couch and said no thank you.
Shah says the share gains are structural and the company is still in the early innings. Early innings. Of a furniture company. Baseball is the only sport where lying about the schedule is a business strategy.
The chart doesn't care. The chart saw a gap up and a new high. Some of you will buy the top because a man in Boston sold 22.2 million customers a sectional. Next quarter, one of those customers will return a lamp and your position will be down 14%.
You didn't buy a stock. You bought a coffee table with a ticker symbol, and it will hold your losses just as well as it holds a coaster.
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