Dive Brief:
- Revenue growth from Wayfair’s U.S. segment — which increased nearly 9% year over year in the second quarter — was the best the company has seen since the pandemic, when home retailers experienced a short-lived surge in demand.
- Overall Q2 revenue increased 7.5% year over year to $3.5 billion, driven in part by higher-income shoppers, CEO Niraj Shah said on a call with analysts Tuesday. The company’s higher-end Perigold banner grew by more than 35% in the period.
- Wayfair swung into the red, reporting a $1 million net loss from a $15 million net income in the year-ago period.
Dive Insight:
Despite continued uncertainty in the housing market, Wayfair beat its own expectations of mid-single-digit growth in the second quarter.
The growth was driven by momentum in orders, which were up 6% year over year and up more than 12% from the first quarter, representing the retailer’s best Q2 sequential growth since the second quarter of 2020, Shah said. Active customers grew 3.3% year over year to 21.7 million.
The company’s higher-end offerings, particularly its Perigold banner, helped fuel growth in the period.
Perigold, which was introduced in 2017, has grown at a double-digit rate every year since launch, posting more than 20% growth in 2024 and 2025, according to Shah, adding that Perigold’s customer base spends about three times what a typical Wayfair.com shopper would in a single year.
“We have a clear line of sight to grow Perigold into a multibillion-dollar business in the years ahead,” Shah said.
The company said about 40% of Perigold’s customers each year are new to the Wayfair ecosystem. “This isn’t just a repackaging of existing demand,” Shah said. “We’re pulling in a customer we would not otherwise reach, one who is more affluent and resilient across economic cycles.”
As part of Wayfair’s broader efforts to grow its brick-and-mortar footprint, the company has opened two Perigold stores with plans for additional locations in the years ahead. “Those stores are already showing us average order values even higher than what we see online,” Shah said. The company is also planning to launch a specific Perigold loyalty program later this year.
Looking ahead, Wayfair expects overall company revenue to grow in the high-single digits in the third quarter, with gross margin ranging from 29.5% to 30.5%.
