Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, I'm Stephen Carroll. I'm in Brussels, where many of Europe's biggest decisions get made.
And I'm Caroline Hepke in London. We're the hosts of the Bloomberg Daybreak Europe podcast.
We're up early every weekday, keeping an eye on what's happening across Europe and around the world.
We do it early so the news is fresh, not recycled, and so you know what actually matters as the day gets going.
From Brussels, I'm following the politics, policy and the people shaping the European Union right now.
And from London, I'm looking at what all that means for markets, money and the wider economy.
We've got reporters across Europe and around the globe feeding in as stories break.
So whether it's geopolitics, energy, tech or markets, you're hearing it while it happens.
It's smart, calm and to the point.
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Chapter 2: What were Wayfair's earnings results and market reactions?
Are they buying it because they have extra money to upgrade something? What's the profile of the consumer? In other words, how is the consumer doing?
It's a great question. We're seeing a few trends. So you mentioned some of the sort of luxury peers. Obviously, we have high-end brands that do compete with those players, like a Perigold or specialty retail brand. The Wayfair brand itself plays all the way from opening price point to upper-end mass, so really spans the full range.
And we have seen a divergence, some of that K-shaped economy, I'm sure we've all been talking about now for a bit. Certainly our Paragold brand or specialty retail brands are growing really north of 20%, we said in 2025. So you can see that accelerating beyond the overall core business. And I think that speaks to the strength in that higher net worth consumer.
We also do see a bit of a divergence in the types of things that people are buying. When I talk about the category being down low single digits, that's a category overall. We actually think furniture or bigger ticket items are down more. That tends to actually be where we are more focused and have a bigger part of the business. But we also, of course, sell decorative accents, seasonal decor.
That part of the business seems to have done a bit better from a category perspective overall. So those would be lower ticket items that may feel more comfortable for folks to purchase right now.
Well, and the other thing I want to ask you, and listen, Kate, we're obsessed with this, the buy now, pay later. And you can do that on Wayfair, too. Are you seeing an uptick in that? Yep.
Yeah, we have a number of options, you know, for various financings and buy now, pay later. We work with a wide range of partners. I do think it's an important offering for the consumer. So, you know, to sort of ensure good underwriting for folks and provide them with a lot of optionality.
I would say our penetration there has been lower than other more traditional brick and mortar furniture retailers. So, you know, as we grow, we're really trying to get to, you know, sort of a more natural place there for the furniture industry overall.
We're speaking with Kate Gulliver, CFO of Wayfair, joining us from Boston.
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Chapter 3: How does Wayfair's CFO assess customer demand trends?
As you think about, or as you kind of move from proof of concept toward potential expansion, what specific performance thresholds are you kind of focusing on and would justify accelerating the physical store growth?
Yeah, it's a great question. So we look at the economics of the store itself. So purchases that are directly attributable to the store and the economics of operating that store. So as you think about the overall store for Wall P&L.
But one of the unique things about building stores who already have a well-established e-commerce brand is you do get to see a benefit in the area for the brand overall.
The other thing that we look at is, you know, what in sort of industry parlance you might call the halo effect, but really sales that are attributable to folks that maybe came into the store and then, you know, left and went and bought something or, you know, had an idea about the store being in the area because they've heard more about it and therefore then shopped on our platform.
And we've seen that continue to hold in really nicely. We gave a stat in our updated investor presentation today that the first store, which is in Chicago, If you look at the entire state of Illinois versus the rest of the country, since the store opened, it's had a 10% CAGR higher than the rest of the country. And that gives you a sense of the momentum that you can get from the store.
It's obviously a very crude metric, but it's an easy way to sort of explain it. So we really look at the combination of the store P&L and then the other benefits that come along with having the store.
Well, that makes me want to follow like what metrics would cause you to maybe remain a little bit more cautious. So like if you open another store and the metrics aren't so you're not seeing that kind of momentum that you're getting in the Chicago store, would you just say, okay, maybe it just depends on the city, the environment. Like there's a lot of specifics that can go into it.
Yeah, you know, I think our focus right now is on learning more about what makes a great store, right? So we have one store open.
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Chapter 4: What factors influenced Wayfair's revenue growth this quarter?
We're planning to open three more in 26. We have one opening soon in the Atlanta area, another one this summer in Columbus, and then in the fall in Denver. These will be, you know, the Columbus store, for example, is 70,000 square feet versus the other stores are roughly around 150,000 square feet. So we're testing out a slightly smaller format.
We're testing out different types of shopping areas where we put the store. And so we intend to learn and then continue to refine the store model based on those learnings. We are quite excited about it as a channel.
Kate, let's go from sort of like the old school store retail model to then what you're doing with AI and layering in AI.
Don't you call stores old school?
Oh, they are.
They're coming back, right, Kate? It's omnichannel. We like the overall omnichannel experience.
But how do you layer in personalization with AI? And I'm curious how you do that in a way that actually makes you more competitive in this area.
Yeah, we're really excited about what we can do with AI from the customer experience perspective. And we've already started some of that and piloted some of that on the site. And there's certainly more to come there. I think this category is a bit unique in that respect because it's a category that is a highly emotive category, right? It feels very personal to folks.
It's not a commodity category where you're doing sort of standard replenishment. You want to get a better sense and see the actual options out there. The brand is important. Our brand is important because you want to ensure the delivery experience is high quality. So we think that the category itself lends itself to bringing people to our site and engaging them in a unique way.
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