Buying furniture has been a harder sell for retailers over the past few years.
When mortgage rates are high and home sales slow, consumers feel stretched. That tends to make shoppers delay big home purchases.
A couch, dining set, bed frame, or outdoor patio set can usually wait longer than groceries, gas, or other essentials.
This usually creates a difficult backdrop for home retailers, furniture chains, and online sellers such as Wayfair.
But new spending data suggests the category may be getting a better setup, especially for retailers that can capture shoppers online while also giving them more ways to see and test products in person.
And for Wayfair, which built its business as an online home retailer but is now expanding deeper into physical stores, this report is important.
The company reported first-quarter earnings on April 30, but a fresher signal came from May retail sales data, which was released on June 17.
The official data showed online shopping was one of the stronger parts of the consumer economy.
Bank of America’s Consumer Spend Collective report, shared with TheStreet, also noted e-commerce spending rose 13% year over year in May, while online penetration expanded 1.8 percentage points to 29.8%.
This is a positive read-through for Wayfair because the company depends heavily on online demand for furniture, décor, housewares, and other home products.
The broader retail sales report told a similar story. The U.S. Census Bureau said nonstore retailers, a category that includes online shopping, rose 12.2% from a year earlier and 1.5% from April.
This does not mean the home category is fully back, but it does mean online retail remains one of the strongest parts of consumer spending, even as shoppers remain selective.
For Wayfair, that creates an important opening.
Wayfair stock rebound gets stronger retail signal
Wayfair’s latest stock performance shows investors may already be looking for signs of a turn.
Wayfair shares are up 26.54% over the past month. The stock is also up 10.85% over the past quarter and up around 73% over the past year.
Still, the rebound has not erased all concerns. Shares remain down 15.48% year to date, suggesting investors are still weighing the company’s recovery against a difficult home-spending environment.
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Wayfair’s first-quarter results showed why the stock has attracted renewed attention.
The company reported net revenue of $2.9 billion, up 7.4% year over year. U.S. net revenue rose 7.5% to $2.6 billion, while international net revenue rose 6.0% to $319 million.
Wayfair also returned to active customer growth. Active customers totaled 21.4 million at the end of the quarter, up 1.4% from a year earlier.
That was an important change for a company that has spent several quarters trying to move beyond the post-pandemic home-goods slowdown.
Orders delivered rose 3.3% to 9.4 million, and average order value increased to $312 from $301 a year earlier. Last-12-month net revenue per active customer rose 5.2% to $591.
Those figures suggest Wayfair is not relying on a single source of growth. It is attracting more customers, generating more orders, and increasing spending per active customer.
The company was still not profitable on a GAAP basis. Wayfair reported a net loss of $105 million in the first quarter. But that was narrower than its $113 million loss a year earlier.
Its adjusted EBITDA rose to $151 million from $106 million, and adjusted diluted EPS rose to 26 cents from 10 cents.
Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah said the company’s first-quarter revenue performance translated into “noteworthy profitability,” adding that its 5.2% adjusted EBITDA margin was its best first-quarter result in five years.
Analysts cut Wayfair targets despite signs of progress
Wall Street’s reaction to Wayfair’s Q1 2026 earnings highlighted the tension around the stock.
Analysts broadly acknowledged that Wayfair is executing better, gaining market share, improving unit economics, and delivering stronger adjusted EBITDA.
But several firms still lowered their price targets because the home-furnishings category remains soft and near-term growth catalysts look limited.
Citi lowered its Wayfair price target to $95 from $110 while keeping a Buy rating, while Mizuho cut its target to $90 from $110 and kept an Outperform rating.
Baird lowered its target to $76 from $85 and kept an Outperform rating, noting that first-quarter results were solid but that near-term catalysts may be limited.
Morgan Stanley cut its target to $110 from $128 while keeping an Overweight rating, citing softer industry demand and slower topline momentum, even as it continued to view Wayfair as a long-term market-share gainer.
Other firms took a similarly cautious view.
Goldman Sachs lowered its target to $79 from $92 and kept a Neutral rating, pointing to Wayfair’s better-than-expected adjusted EBITDA and expense discipline, but also the weak home category.
TD Cowen cut its target to $75 from $88 and kept a Hold rating, saying worsening category demand was being partly offset by Wayfair’s share gains.
Truist analyst Youssef Squali lowered his target to $99 from $105 but kept a Buy rating, arguing that Wayfair is still outperforming in a challenged home-furnishing market through stronger execution and improving unit economics, as noted at TheFly.
The analyst cuts show why the latest spending data matters.
Wall Street had already lowered expectations for Wayfair because the home category was soft.
But Bank of America’s report and May retail sales data showed stronger online retail spending and improving furnishings demand, giving investors a fresh signal that the consumer backdrop may be moving in Wayfair’s favor.
Wayfair expands stores as furniture shoppers move online
The more interesting part of Wayfair’s strategy is that the company is not responding to stronger online demand by staying online-only.
It is doing the opposite.
Wayfair is expanding its physical-store footprint, a move that could help it compete in a home category where customers often want to see, touch, sit on, or compare products before buying.
On June 18, Wayfair announced plans to open a new large-format store in Princeton, N.J., in 2027.
The roughly 135,000-square-foot store will be located at Nassau Park Pavilion and is meant to serve shoppers across central New Jersey, nearby Pennsylvania, and the broader Northeast.
The Princeton store will include furniture, décor, housewares, appliances, Wayfair Verified products, and free design services.
Some products will be available for same-day take-home, while larger pieces can be delivered through Wayfair’s logistics network.
The Princeton announcement followed a May 15 update from Wayfair that it also plans to open a new large-format store in Cincinnati in 2027.
That location, expected to be about 130,000 square feet, will sit at 4825 Marburg Avenue within the Center of Cincinnati.
Wayfair said the store will help it reach customers across Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.
The company already has stores in Wilmette, Illinois; Atlanta, Georgia; and Columbus, Ohio, and has announced additional markets, including Denver, Westchester, Fort Lauderdale, Cincinnati, and Princeton.
That expansion shows Wayfair is trying to become more than a digital destination.
It wants to give customers the convenience of online shopping while adding the confidence that can come from an in-person experience.
Wayfair bets shoppers want stores and online options
The timing is important.
BofA’s spending data showed that online retail had a strong May, but home spending remains more complex than categories like gas or everyday essentials.
BofA’s report also noted that spending on furnishings improved in May, rising 1.5% year over year after declining 1.4% in April.
That gives Wayfair a better consumer backdrop than it had earlier in the year.
The Census retail report was more mixed for physical furniture and home-furnishing stores, which rose from April but remained down from a year earlier.
That split may help explain why Wayfair is trying to build a model that does not depend on a single shopping channel.
A customer may browse furniture online, visit a store to compare quality or scale, use design services to plan a room, and then have larger items delivered through Wayfair’s logistics network.
That kind of shopping behavior is especially important in furniture, where returns can be costly, and buying decisions often take longer than in apparel, beauty, or grocery.
Wayfair’s first-quarter results also showed the importance of mobile and repeat customers.
The company said 64.7% of total orders delivered in the quarter were placed via a mobile device, up from 63.4% a year earlier. Repeat customers placed 79.8% of total orders delivered.
Those numbers show that Wayfair’s core shopper is still digital. But its store expansion suggests the company sees physical retail as a way to deepen that relationship, not replace it.
The strategy is not without risk. Large-format stores are expensive to open and operate, and the home category remains tied to housing activity, interest rates, and consumer confidence.
Wayfair also reported negative free cash flow of $106 million in the first quarter, an improvement from $139 million a year earlier.
The company is also getting a more favorable signal from consumer spending data as it builds a broader retail footprint.
That is why Wayfair’s recent stock rally matters.
Investors are not just reacting to one quarter of results. They are watching whether online spending strength, improving home-furnishing trends, and a larger physical-store strategy can turn Wayfair into a stronger omnichannel home retailer.
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