Wayfair CEO Reveals His 4 Drivers of Long-Term Retail Success

"Our aspiration was to be the online leader in home goods, so we decided to build that brand and introduced Wayfair," Shah said. "Within a year we shut [down] the category websites, got out of the sunglass and footwear business, and as a result lost traffic. While in the near term it didn't seem like the best decision, we did it with a long-term vision in mind. We wanted to focus on where we knew we could be the leader.”