Wayfair Inc.
lost five million customers in 2022, shrinking the online furniture retailer’s shopper count to near its size before the Covid-19 pandemic triggered a consumer-spending surge.
Revenue at the Boston-based company slid 4.6% in the final three months of last year from a year earlier to $3.1 billion, for a net loss of $351 million.
Wayfair is trying to stem significant losses as consumers spend more on food and services and turn away from electronics and household goods.
Executives said the company ended the year with 22.1 million active customers, defined as someone who placed an order within the past 12 months. That was a decline of 19% compared with the prior year and just above the 21.1 million Wayfair customers at the end of March 2020.
Wayfair’s stock was down 27% at midday Thursday.
Wayfair in January laid off about 1,750 workers, or 10% of its global workforce. The layoffs followed about 870 job cuts in August. Both rounds of layoffs were part of a broader program to find $1.4 billion of annualized cost savings.
The company’s co-founders,
Niraj Shah
and
Steve Conine,
said in a letter to investors Thursday that they want to “return to our roots as a thrifty organization.”
Wayfair’s sales surged early in the Covid-19 pandemic as people splurged on home furnishings, helping the company achieve profitability in 2020.
Sales slid in 2021 and through 2022. The company’s full-year revenue last year of $12.2 billion was down almost 11% over the prior year for a net loss of $1.3 billion.
Wayfair executives on an earnings call Thursday said they saw positive signs for an uptick in orders and a move toward profitability in 2023. “I think we will see the numbers going in the direction we want to see them grow,” Mr. Shah said.
Wayfair has placed a big emphasis on its in-house logistics operations that provide ocean shipping, customs, warehousing and delivery services to thousands of suppliers. Wayfair executives have compared their logistics offerings, housed under the company’s CastleGate brand, to retail behemoths such as
Amazon.com Inc.
The founders said in Thursday’s letter to investors that they expected CastleGate usage to climb this year after it declined earlier in the pandemic.
Write to Paul Berger at paul.berger@wsj.com
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Wayfair Inc.
lost five million customers in 2022, shrinking the online furniture retailer’s shopper count to near its size before the Covid-19 pandemic triggered a consumer-spending surge.
Revenue at the Boston-based company slid 4.6% in the final three months of last year from a year earlier to $3.1 billion, for a net loss of $351 million.
Wayfair is trying to stem significant losses as consumers spend more on food and services and turn away from electronics and household goods.
Executives said the company ended the year with 22.1 million active customers, defined as someone who placed an order within the past 12 months. That was a decline of 19% compared with the prior year and just above the 21.1 million Wayfair customers at the end of March 2020.
Wayfair’s stock was down 27% at midday Thursday.
Wayfair in January laid off about 1,750 workers, or 10% of its global workforce. The layoffs followed about 870 job cuts in August. Both rounds of layoffs were part of a broader program to find $1.4 billion of annualized cost savings.
The company’s co-founders,
Niraj Shah
and
Steve Conine,
said in a letter to investors Thursday that they want to “return to our roots as a thrifty organization.”
Wayfair’s sales surged early in the Covid-19 pandemic as people splurged on home furnishings, helping the company achieve profitability in 2020.
Sales slid in 2021 and through 2022. The company’s full-year revenue last year of $12.2 billion was down almost 11% over the prior year for a net loss of $1.3 billion.
Wayfair executives on an earnings call Thursday said they saw positive signs for an uptick in orders and a move toward profitability in 2023. “I think we will see the numbers going in the direction we want to see them grow,” Mr. Shah said.
Wayfair has placed a big emphasis on its in-house logistics operations that provide ocean shipping, customs, warehousing and delivery services to thousands of suppliers. Wayfair executives have compared their logistics offerings, housed under the company’s CastleGate brand, to retail behemoths such as
Amazon.com Inc.
The founders said in Thursday’s letter to investors that they expected CastleGate usage to climb this year after it declined earlier in the pandemic.
Write to Paul Berger at paul.berger@wsj.com
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8