Entrepreneurs Niraj Shah and Steve Conine founded Wayfair in 2002 in Boston, Massachusetts as CSN Stores. Wayfair was their third company.
CSN Stores was launched as a single website, www.racksandstands.com, which sold media stands and storage furniture.
Over the following two years, the company expanded its product line to include home goods, office, institutional, kitchen, dining, bed and bath, home improvement, luggage, and lighting.
In 2006 CSN reached $100 million in sales.
In 2008 the company expanded to Canada and the U.K., and in 2009 to Australia and Germany.
By 2011 CSN Stores owned over 200 online stores. The same year, founders Shah and Conine decided to rebrand the site in an effort to unify the brand and redirect web traffic to one site, changing the name of the company to Wayfair.
The company went public in late 2014 on the NASDAQ and can be found under the ticker symbol: W:US. The company was valued at that time at $2 billion.
Despite spending more than $500 million on advertising and increased sales of more than 50%, the company posted a second-quarter loss of $100 million.
In mid-2018, the company announced that it planned to open its first retail location in Cincinnati, Ohio, in late 2018. An exact date has yet to be announced.
Wayfair employees threatened to walk off the job after discovering that the company has sold furniture to contractors who are operating the detention centers that house migrant children who are separated from family members per the Trump administration. The company responded by saying it was a company practice to fulfill orders to clients. The walkout is scheduled for June 26, 2019.
Today Wayfair is the 33rd largest online retailer for home goods and furniture in the U.S. with $4.72 billion in revenue in 2017.
Wayfair
Entrepreneurs Niraj Shah and Steve Conine founded Wayfair in 2002 in Boston, Massachusetts as CSN Stores. Wayfair was their third company.
CSN Stores was launched as a single website, www.racksandstands.com, which sold media stands and storage furniture.
History
Over the following two years, the company expanded its product line to include home goods, office, institutional, kitchen, dining, bed and bath, home improvement, luggage, and lighting.
In 2006 CSN reached $100 million in sales.
In 2008 the company expanded to Canada and the U.K., and in 2009 to Australia and Germany.
By 2011 CSN Stores owned over 200 online stores. The same year, founders Shah and Conine decided to rebrand the site in an effort to unify the brand and redirect web traffic to one site, changing the name of the company to Wayfair.
The company went public in late 2014 on the NASDAQ and can be found under the ticker symbol: W:US. The company was valued at that time at $2 billion.
Despite spending more than $500 million on advertising and increased sales of more than 50%, the company posted a second-quarter loss of $100 million.
In mid-2018, the company announced that it planned to open its first retail location in Cincinnati, Ohio, in late 2018. An exact date has yet to be announced.
Wayfair employees threatened to walk off the job after discovering that the company has sold furniture to contractors who are operating the detention centers that house migrant children who are separated from family members per the Trump administration. The company responded by saying it was a company practice to fulfill orders to clients. The walkout is scheduled for June 26, 2019.
Today Wayfair is the 33rd largest online retailer for home goods and furniture in the U.S. with $4.72 billion in revenue in 2017.