Wayfair's stock leaps as job cuts allows for more work to get done, and faster

By Tomi Kilgore

Losses narrowed and beat expectations, and active customers returned to growth

Shares of Wayfair Inc. soared Thursday, after the online home-furnishings retailer reported a narrower-than-expected fourth-quarter loss and said it returned to positive active customer growth after two years of declines.

The quarterly results come about a month after the company said it was laying off about 1,650 employees, the third announcement of job cuts in the past 18 months.

In a letter to shareholders on Thursday, co-Founder and Chief Executive Niraj Shah said that when job cuts were first announced in August 2022 and again in January 2023, he saw that the remaining employees were getting more done, getting it done faster and at a lower cost.

And with the job cuts announced last month, Shah wrote: "And again, while it is early, it does seem like we are getting more done, and faster, and at a lower cost."

The stock (W) shot up 14.8% in premarket trading, after closing the previous session at a three-month low.

For the fourth-quarter, the company reported net losses that narrowed to $174 million, or $1.49 a share, from $351 million, or $3.26 a share, in the year-ago period.

Excluding nonrecurring items, such as equity-based compensation costs, adjusted per-share losses narrowed to 11 cents from $1.71, and beat the FactSet loss consensus of 15 cents.

Revenue grew 0.4% to $3.114 billion, just above the FactSet consensus of $3.106 billion.

Active customers as of Dec. 31 rose 1.4% to 22.4 million, to snap an eight-quarter streak of declines. And orders placed by repeat customers rose 5.9% to 9 million, while the percentage of total orders placed by repeat customers increased by two percentage points to 79.4%.

Meanwhile, net revenue per active customer over the last 12 months fell 2.9% to $537 and the average order valued declined 2.5% to $276.

"The good news is that the hardest work of the reset is now behind us, and 2024 has us moving forward adroitly," Shah wrote.

"In the last 18 months, out market share has growth to record highs, and we believe the best is yet to come," Shah added.

The stock has tumbled 20.9% year to date through Wednesday, while the Amplify Online Retail ETF has slipped 3% and the S&P 500 has gained 4.4%.

-Tomi Kilgore

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02-22-24 0841ET

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