Thomson Reuters
Traders wait for the Wayfair IPO on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange
- Wayfair beat on sales but missed on the bottom line.
- Management said its direct
retail business was a strong driver for sales. - Shares tumbled 17% following the results.
Wayfair was getting slammed Thursday, down 17%, after the company posted a third-quarter loss that was bigger than expected.
The home-goods retailer generated $1.71 billion of revenue, topping the $1.67 billion that analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were expecting. Nearly all of Wayfair's sales came from its direct retail business. The retailer said that the number of active customers in the direct retail business reached 13.9 million by the end of September, an increase of 35.2% year over year.
But the company failed to turn its sales surge into a profit. It lost $1.28 a share, worse than the $1.10 loss that was anticipated.
"We are pleased to report another quarter of incredibly strong growth with our Direct Retail business growing 43 percent this past quarter," CEO Niraj Shah said in the press release.
"We are taking a long-term approach to building our business and putting shoppers first by investing further in our logistics capabilities, in our international regions and in scaling headcount to enhance our customer offering in under-penetrated product categories and services. Overall, we are thrilled with how the business performed in Q3 and are excited to build on this strength moving forward."
Shares were up 36% this year.
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