Wayfair is taking over the Home.

Misunderstood leading platform company selling off.

Pictured above are Niraj Shah and Steve Conine, the co-founders of Wayfair. The two became close friends at Cornell and created the business plan for what today is Wayfair. Out of university they founded other technology related businesses which gave them skills and experience before finally taking their final step.

They started by launching CSN stores in 2002 - at which they used Google ads and quantitative marketing to get their first clients. By 2011 their vision was becoming clearer, and their skills of launching and growing an online retail behemoth had gotten much sharper. They took the decision to close down CSN and focus only on the home.

At the time, CSN Stores was running more than >250 sites selling home-related products but with opportunistic categories as well like Rooster Decor🐓 and other random niche categories.

In 2011, the duo decided to close all the opportunistic categories and focus on the home.

But before we move further, what is current market sentiment on Wayfair? 🐻🐻🐻

Jonah Lupton @JonahLupton

@philoinvestor @SubstackInc You need to check your numbers again. Next year revenue growth is expected to be 8-12% with 27% gross margins and 1% net income margins. With very little growth why should $W be trading at 130x earnings?

Matthew @MatthewW944

@MadThunderdome @philoinvestor Consensus still has this turd making a profit in 2022, pretty funny

Thunderdome Capital @MadThunderdome

@philoinvestor I hope you're not long this trash. Business is falling apart.

Thunderdome Capital @MadThunderdome

@philoinvestor Spending collapsing. Supply chain stuff crushing them. Competitors offering better prices.

And a tweet from one of our philoinvestors👇. While we thank @Deeze1031 for his good words on the Farfetch research piece - we believe the Wayfair piece is as good!

Your local butcher @Deezee1031

@philoinvestor @MadThunderdome In my humble opinion, I think your Farfetch idea is 100x better than Wayfair

Wayfair is not a retailer.

Wayfair is a platform, technology and logistics company for all things home. Wayfair enables their 23,000 suppliers to list, market and sell their products online to their ~30 million customers.

The TAM (total available market) for all things home is at $800 billion, split equally between the US and Europe. 2021 sales were at ~14 billion (2% share).

Management aims for at 20% of this market - and has in the past cited examples of the leaders in a specific segment taking 20% to 30% market share. It’s still early days for Wayfair. Management is not sitting back waiting for their market share to simply go there on its own, it is taking an active role in doing so.

And this is one of the reasons operating expenses are high relative to revenues, thus hurting current bottom line.