Head-To-Head Contrast: Wayfair (W) versus Its Rivals

Wayfair (NYSE:W) is one of 285 public companies in the “Specialty Retail” industry, but how does it compare to its competitors? We will compare Wayfair to related companies based on the strength of its risk, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, profitability and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Wayfair and its competitors, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Wayfair	1	12	15	3	2.65
Wayfair Competitors	3678	15610	21633	590	2.46

Wayfair currently has a consensus target price of $129.00, suggesting a potential upside of 15.65%. As a group, “Specialty Retail” companies have a potential upside of 6.13%. Given Wayfair’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Wayfair is more favorable than its competitors.

Risk & Volatility

Wayfair has a beta of 3.1, suggesting that its share price is 210% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Wayfair’s competitors have a beta of 1.91, suggesting that their average share price is 91% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Wayfair and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Wayfair	-1.21%	-5.14%	4.65%
Wayfair Competitors	-3.69%	-14.02%	3.17%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Wayfair and its competitors revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Wayfair	$12.46 billion	-$313.00 million	-89.23
Wayfair Competitors	$7.05 billion	$386.47 million	31.12

Wayfair has higher revenue, but lower earnings than its competitors. Wayfair is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

89.7% of Wayfair shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 51.9% of shares of all “Specialty Retail” companies are owned by institutional investors. 18.4% of Wayfair shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 20.5% of shares of all “Specialty Retail” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Wayfair beats its competitors on 9 of the 13 factors compared.

About Wayfair

Wayfair Inc. is an e-commerce company focused on furniture and home furnishings. Its online platform offers products for living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms, outdoor spaces and other areas of the home, including furniture, décor, lighting, rugs and housewares. The company operates a portfolio of retail brands, including Wayfair, AllModern, Birch Lane, Joss & Main and Perigold. It serves customers primarily in the United States and Canada, as well as in select international markets. Wayfair was founded in 2002 by Niraj Shah and Steve Conine as CSN Stores and adopted the Wayfair name in 2011.