By Katherine Hamilton

Wayfair said the year is off to a rocky start as consumers are pulling back on nonessential spending.

Chief Executive Niraj Shah told analysts Thursday that consumers are spending less on furniture due to higher energy and fuel prices. Bad weather also disrupted business in the earlier part of the first quarter, which ended March 31, Shah said.

"The home-furnishings category has had a choppy start to the year," Shah said. "We're continuing to closely watch the broader economic implications and how consumers are managing their wallets as they face higher prices at the gas pump."

The Boston-based online home-goods retailer posted a loss of $105 million, or 80 cents a share, in the quarter ended March 31, compared with a loss of $113 million, or 89 cents a share, a year earlier.

Stripping out certain one-time items, adjusted per-share earnings were 26 cents, behind the 28 cents anticipated by analysts, according to FactSet.

Revenue rose 7.4% to $2.93 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast revenue of $2.89 billion.

Furniture is one of the categories in which consumers have pulled back the most due to inflation, Shah said. While higher energy prices haven't directly impacted the business, executives said, higher gas prices only compound consumers' concerns about persistent inflation.

"I would think of home as being a category that's still out of favor," Shah said. "I would think of it as kind of bumping along the bottom."

Wayfair still believes it can grow its market share despite the macroeconomic challenges to the industry. The company expects revenue to increase by a mid-single-digit percentage in the current quarter, Finance Chief and Chief Administrative Officer Kate Gulliver said.

The outlook came as a relief to investors, as shares clawed back from an earlier 8% premarket drop and were more recently trading down 3.1% at $71 before the bell.

The furniture sector has continued to be volatile in April and is trending toward a mid-single-digit percentage decline, Gulliver said. But Wayfair's share of the market has held steady and promotions are similar to what they were last year.

"We do believe the share gains are accelerating," Gulliver said.

Write to Katherine Hamilton at katherine.hamilton@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 30, 2026 09:22 ET (13:22 GMT)

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