Wayfair, Inc. recorded mild revenue growth in its fiscal Q4, which ended Dec. 31, with U.S. revenue growing at a slightly faster rate.

Still, while the Housewares & Home Furnishings retailer managed to keep its revenue growth positive in Q4, Wayfair’s full-year sales declined in 2024 compared to 2023.

Wayfair also saw 8% revenue growth in Q4 compared to Q3, said chief financial officer Kate Gulliver. She said Wayfair recorded 15% more orders in the holiday quarter than in Q3, which was offset by average order value (AOV) compressing about 6% in the same time frame.

Customer service and merchant fees comprised 3.7% of net revenue, while advertising was 13.7%, Gulliver said. She also noted that Wayfair “ad dollars are payback driven, spent against channels with specific expectations for ROI over a defined time frame.”

Even the shortest payback windows can take more than 60 days, she said, meaning “a significant portion of the dollars spent in the quarter won’t pay back until the following quarter or beyond.”

Co-founder and CEO Niraj Shah indicated some silver linings on an earnings call with investors.

Shah said opening Wayfair’s first branded store in 2024 had a “wider halo uplift.” The store opening in Wilmette, Illinois, led to a “more than 15% spread in the growth rate of the state of Illinois versus the U.S. overall.”

Also among the silver linings was that Wayfair had double-digit growth in app installs during Q4. Additionally, new customer order growth in the U.S. outpaces repeat customer order growth for the first time since 2020, he said. Shah also noted that Pinterest continues to be one of Wayfair’s “most powerful channels” for connecting with home shoppers.

After the quarter’s end, Wayfair announced in January that it made the decision to exit the German market.

“Scaling our market share and improving our unit economics in the German market had proven difficult due to the challenging macro in Germany, our limited scale there, and our current brand awareness in the country,” Shah said.

Wayfair revenue in Q4 and full-year 2024

In its fiscal Q4, Wayfair net revenue increased 0.2% year over year (or by $7 million) to $3.1 billion.

And in the U.S., specifically, Wayfair net revenue grew 1.1% year over year. Meanwhile, Wayfair international net revenue fell 5.7% in Q4. In addition, the home furnishings retailer reduced its net loss by 26.4% from the same quarter a year prior to $128 million.

Wayfair ranks No. 9 in the Top 2000 Database. The Top 2000 is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of North American online retailers by their annual ecommerce sales. Wayfair is also the highest-ranking Housewares & Home Furnishings retailer in the Top 2000.

Wayfair’s number of active customers decreased 4.5% year over year in its fiscal Q4 to total 21.4 million. Repeat customers placed 79.4% of total orders Wayfair delivered in both Q4 2024 and Q4 2023, the retailer reported. They placed 8.5 million orders in Q4 2024, which is 5.6% less than the prior fourth quarter.

Wayfair’s average order value increased to $290 in Q4 2024, from $276 the year before. And 64.5% of all the orders it delivered came from mobile devices in Q4 2024, an increase from 62.8% the prior year.

That highlights a trend of holiday online shopping becoming increasingly mobile.

For the full year, though, total Wayfair revenue decreased, as both its U.S. and international segments recorded dips. In 2024, Wayfair revenue decreased 1.3% (or $152 million) year over year to $11.9 billion.

In the U.S., specifically, Wayfair revenue decreased 1.0% year over year (or $109 million) to $10.4 billion in 2024. Internationally, Wayfair revenue decreased 2.8% year over year (or $43 million) to $1.5 billion.

Ways Wayfair plans to improve sales

Shah also shared some ways Wayfair seeks to improve its sales, including through its logistics network and product verification.

He said Wayfair’s logistics network, CastleGate, has helped drive a better customer experience. About 90% of orders using CastleGate have a speed badge indicating how long it will take for an item to arrive at a consumer’s home. He explained that Wayfair is able to implement that speed badge on its site because of the CastleGate network intelligently positioning products and integrating fulfillment centers into last-mile delivery operations.

“This advantage, combined with the nature of a logistics network custom built for home, is demonstrable,” Shah said. “Compared to items fulfilled by third-party logistics providers, CastleGate-fulfilled items see order to delivery dates nearly halved, return rate percentage down by about a fifth, lower rates of incidence, and higher NPS [net promoter score].”

He cited a stat that an item going from no speed badging on Wayfair’s site to receiving a one-day badge can drive a 60% increase in conversion rate.

Shah also said an initiative the retailer launched in late 2024 called Wayfair Verified has helped bolster trust for consumers. Along with attributes on a typical product landing page, items with a Wayfair Verified stamp “also include a short editorial video,” Shah stated. In it, a Wayfair employee showcases key features and explains why the item is among their top choices, he added

“The Wayfair Verified stamp on a product page gives customers a quick and easy way to identify products that we’ve specifically chosen to highlight and that have been physically audited by our merchants,” Shah noted. “This means our team handles the products themselves to ensure that they meet the highest quality and value standards.”

Shah said Wayfair Verified has driven more than 20x the revenue per SKU than the retailer’s catalog at large.

Will tariffs affect Wayfair sales and revenue?

Shah said U.S.-imposed tariffs on China during President Donald Trump’s first term were “a surprise to most folks.” That led to Wayfair suppliers making decisions about their own supply chains that would optimize the cost of their goods, he said.

Since then, he said, merchants like Wayfair have come to an understanding that U.S. tariff policies “may continue to evolve.” As a result, other countries in Asia have stepped up to become suppliers amid tariffs on China, including:

• Cambodia
• Indonesia
• Thailand
• Philippines
• Vietnam

And outside of that region, he said, India, Brazil and Turkey have grown as sources of goods. He said the supply chain has been diversifying. Production has also come from the U.S., Mexico and Canada (with the U.S. announcing tariffs on the the latter two), he added.

“We as a platform, because we have 20,000 plus suppliers, we work with all these folks,” Shah said. He added that Wayfair’s “different suppliers may get advantaged or disadvantaged as different things happen. That could be something like global trade policy, but it also could be something like ocean freight pricing.”

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