W vs SHOP Stock Comparison: AI Score, Valuation, Performance and Upside
Wayfair and Shopify are both e-commerce companies but fundamentally different businesses. Wayfair is a direct home goods retailer competing on selection and delivery; Shopify is an e-commerce infrastructure platform providing software and financial services to merchants across all product categories. This is a retailer vs platform comparison with very different economics.
W vs SHOP is a home goods specialty retailer with cyclical demand and logistics complexity (Wayfair) versus the world's leading e-commerce merchant platform with recurring subscription revenue and financial services expansion (Shopify) — Shopify's platform model is structurally more defensible and higher-margin.
W and SHOP are closely matched — they split the tracked metrics evenly. W leads on both 1-year return (+80.25%) and forward P/E (23.73x vs 46.67x for SHOP), a relatively favorable combination of momentum and valuation. Analyst consensus implies meaningfully more upside for SHOP (+36.17%) than for W (+3.64%).
- →prefer a speculative recovery play in home goods e-commerce if housing market activity and consumer discretionary spending recover
- →value Wayfair's massive home goods selection and CastleGate logistics as defensible against physical competitors
- →want home goods e-commerce exposure at a lower valuation multiple than growth platform peers
- →are comfortable with cyclical exposure to housing and consumer spending, ongoing losses, and Amazon/Target competition
- →prefer the world's leading e-commerce merchant platform with 2M+ merchants, high switching costs, and recurring subscription revenue
- →value Shopify's financial services expansion (Payments, Capital) adding high-margin revenue on top of the core software platform
- →want e-commerce infrastructure compounding as global retail continues shifting online across all merchant categories
- →are comfortable with premium valuation multiples and Amazon's Buy with Prime as a competitive threat to Shopify's merchant base
| Metric | W | SHOP |
|---|---|---|
| AI score | 40.2 | 73.5 |
| AI rank | #1071 | #28 |
| Latest close | $88.52 | $108.85 |
| 1M return | +54.22% | +7.76% |
| 6M return | -13.61% | -32.70% |
| 1Y return | +80.25% | +2.72% |
How much would $10,000 be worth today if invested at the start of each period, with all dividends reinvested?
| Period | W | SHOP |
|---|---|---|
| 1Y ago | $18.02K (+80.2%) started 2025-06-18 | $10.27K (+2.7%) started 2025-06-18 |
| 5Y ago | $2.92K (-70.8%) started 2021-06-18 | $7.42K (-25.8%) started 2021-06-18 |
| 10Y ago | $22K (+120.0%) started 2016-06-20 | $365.64K (+3556.4%) started 2016-06-20 |
Hypothetical — past performance does not guarantee future results.
| Metric | W | SHOP |
|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $11.68B | $141.25B |
| Trailing P/E | N/A | 106.72 |
| Forward P/E | 23.73 | 46.67 |
| Price/Sales | 0.92 | 11.42 |
| EV/Revenue | 1.07 | 11.43 |
| Analyst target | $91.74 | $148.22 |
| Target upside | +3.64% | +36.17% |
| Metric | W | SHOP |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue growth | 7.40% | 34.30% |
| Earnings growth | N/A | N/A |
| EPS growth | N/A | N/A |
| FCF margin | +3.08% | +10.16% |
| Operating margin | N/A | N/A |
| Profit margin | -2.41% | 10.77% |
| ROIC proxy | N/A | 11.31% |
| Return on equity | N/A | 11.31% |
| Dividend yield | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Beta | 3.02 | 2.59 |
| Debt/equity | N/A | 1.43 |
| Current ratio | 0.76 | 6.20 |
| Quick ratio | 0.59 | 4.53 |
Lower drawdown and smaller single-period drops generally indicate a smoother ride, though they do not guarantee lower future risk.
| Period | Metric | W | SHOP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Y | Growth | +80.25% | +2.72% |
| CAGR | +80.32% | +2.72% | |
| Sharpe ratio | 1.16 | 0.25 | |
| Max drawdown | 51.78% | 46.71% | |
| Max daily drop | 13.02% | 15.62% | |
| Max wkly drop | 17.81% | 22.56% | |
| 5Y | Growth | -70.80% | -25.79% |
| CAGR | -21.83% | -5.79% | |
| Sharpe ratio | 0.04 | 0.16 | |
| Max drawdown | 92.49% | 84.82% | |
| Max daily drop | 25.68% | 18.59% | |
| Max wkly drop | 42.03% | 34.38% | |
| 10Y | Growth | +120.03% | +3556.37% |
| CAGR | +8.21% | +43.35% | |
| Sharpe ratio | 0.42 | 0.83 | |
| Max drawdown | 93.01% | 84.82% | |
| Max daily drop | 26.68% | 18.59% | |
| Max wkly drop | 45.34% | 34.38% |
| Category | W | SHOP |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Wayfair Inc. | Shopify Inc. |
| Sector | Consumer Discretionary | Technology |
| Industry | N/A | N/A |
| Core business | Wayfair is the largest online-only home goods and furniture retailer in the US, with Wayfair.com, Joss & Main, AllModern, Birch Lane, and Perigold as its brand portfolio. Wayfair curates and sells home goods from thousands of suppliers, managing the customer experience, returns, and delivery for large-format furniture and décor. It operates CastleGate fulfillment and its own freight network for the unique challenges of large-item home goods delivery. | Shopify is the world's leading e-commerce platform, enabling 2M+ merchants globally to build and operate online stores. Unlike Wayfair (a retailer), Shopify is pure infrastructure — it provides merchants with storefront, payments, inventory, analytics, and shipping on a subscription-plus-transaction-fee model. Shopify Payments, Shopify Capital (merchant loans), and Shopify Markets (international selling) extend the platform into financial services. |
| Investor focus | Investors track active customer count, revenue per active customer, gross margin improvement, and the path to sustained profitability after years of investment in logistics and customer acquisition. | Investors track Gross Merchandise Volume (all sales processed on Shopify), Monthly Recurring Revenue (subscription fees), Gross Payment Volume (Shopify Payments attach rate), and Shopify Capital loan originations. |
- →Largest selection of home goods online — millions of SKUs across price points creates selection advantages not present in physical furniture retail
- →CastleGate fulfillment and delivery network creates logistics capabilities for large-format home goods that competitors cannot easily replicate
- →Home goods is a large category where online penetration was lower than average — structural shift to online furniture shopping is a multi-year tailwind
- →Platform model serving 2M+ merchants creates a high switching-cost ecosystem — merchants build their entire commerce operation on Shopify and face significant migration costs
- →Shopify Payments and Capital are high-margin financial services attached to the merchant relationship, expanding revenue per merchant significantly
- →Enterprise (Shopify Plus) and international expansion provide sustained growth on top of the established mid-market merchant base
- →Home goods spending is highly cyclical — housing market downturns, high mortgage rates, and consumer pullbacks directly reduce Wayfair sales
- →Sustained losses and high cost structure from logistics investment have made GAAP profitability elusive
- →Amazon, Target, and physical retailers like Williams-Sonoma are expanding online home goods — Wayfair's selection advantage erodes if competitors catch up
- →Amazon's Buy with Prime and Fulfillment by Amazon offer competing solutions that can draw merchants toward Amazon's ecosystem
- →High valuation (historically 30–50x revenue) reflects growth expectations — any slowdown in GMV growth is amplified in stock price
- →Shopify sold its logistics business in 2023 — fulfillment remains the most complex element of merchant experience and is now largely outsourced
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