WWSMWilliams-Sonoma, Inc. Common Stock (DE)

Williams-Sonoma sells furniture and homeware under several brands and almost never discounts.

The group holds several brands of different vintage and style, from classic kitchenware to furniture for young flats. Most sales go directly through the site and catalogue rather than through shopping centres, and that matters: an owned channel yields customer data and removes the intermediary.

Refusing constant sales is deliberate policy: a discount teaches people to wait for discounts, so the company prefers to hold price and invest in designing its own collections. Hence profitability unusual for furniture retail. Risks: the housing market, on which demand for furnishing directly depends, import tariffs and the cost of delivering bulky goods. The company pays a dividend and buys back stock.