At a time when many furniture retailers like Williams-Sonoma andRestoration Hardware are struggling, Jim Cramer turned his attention to Wayfair to see how it could differentiate itself from the competition.
Online retailer Wayfair sells furniture and home goods at bargain prices for brands like Joss & Main, All Modern, Birch Lane and Dwell Studio. However, it seems that regardless of how the company is doing, the stock continues to be a target of short sellers who dismiss its ability to compete against traditional home-goods retailers.
With the stock down more than 16 percent for the year, Cramer spoke with Wayfair’s co-founder and CEO, Niraj Shah, to find out what could be in store for the company.
“Our company was actually profitable for the first nine years, which folks tend to overlook,” Shah said.
Wayfair reported earnings last Thursday, and surprised many investors with a 7-cent earnings loss when Wall Street was expecting a 14-cent loss. It also reported higher than expected revenue, up 81 percent year-over-year, and gave extremely bullish guidance for next quarter.
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So, what is the difference between Wayfair and companies like Williams-Sonoma and Restoration Hardware?
“To be fair, both of them play at the very high end of the market. Their products are very expensive, so they’re really not making them affordable,” Shah said.
Shah added that he considers the model of Wayfair to be very different from Restoration Hardware and Williams-Sonoma, as they are traditional inventory players that are store based and have catalog operations. Wayfair’s model is much larger, with a mass business and selection offered for the merchandise that differentiates it.
“If you want to have the thesis that Wayfair doesn’t make sense, you could say that, but I think as you do research you would find that Wayfair is actually a very strong company,” he said.
[“source -cncb”]
