ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS.

An investment in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the following risk factors, together with the other information contained in this report, before purchasing our common stock. We have listed below (not necessarily in order of importance or probability of occurrence) what we believe to be the most significant risk factors, but they do not constitute all of the risks that may be applicable. Any of the following factors could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations or prospects, and could result in a partial or complete loss of your investment. Some statements in this report, including statements in the following risk factors, constitute forward-looking statements. Please refer to the section titled “Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements”.

Risks Related to the Proposed Acquisition

If the benefits of the proposed acquisition do not meet the expectations of investors, stockholders or financial analysts, the market price of our common stock may decline.

If the benefits of the proposed acquisition do not meet the expectations of investors or securities analysts, the market price of our common stock prior to the closing of the proposed acquisition may decline. The market values of our common stock at the time of the proposed acquisition may vary significantly from their prices on the date the acquisition target was identified.

In addition, broad market and industry factors may materially harm the market price of our common stock irrespective of our operating performance. The stock market in general has experienced price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of the particular companies affected. The trading prices and valuations of these stocks, and of our securities, may not be predictable. A loss of investor confidence in the market for retail stocks or the stocks of other companies which investors perceive to be similar to us could depress our stock price regardless of our business, prospects, financial conditions or results of operations. A decline in the market price of our securities also could adversely affect our ability to issue additional securities and our ability to obtain additional financing in the future.

The proposed acquisition is subject to a number of conditions.

The purchase agreement contains a number of conditions that must be fulfilled to complete the proposed acquisition, including, without limitation: the receipt of all authorizations, consents, permits, licenses or approvals of all governmental authorities or other third parties; the expiration or termination of any waiting period applicable to the consummation of the transaction under the Hart-Scott Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended; the absence of any temporary, preliminary or permanent restraining order preventing the consummation of the proposed acquisition; the release of any security interests related to Appliances Connection; the execution of new leases for certain properties; the execution of certain employment agreements between certain officers of Appliances Connection and ACI; the receipt of an opinion of the sellers’ counsel; and the receipt of documents required for the transfer of the securities of Appliances Connection to ACI. In addition, ACI shall have obtained on terms and conditions reasonably satisfactory to it all of the financing necessary to pay the cash portion of the purchase price and pay related fees and expenses to consummate the proposed acquisition and provide reasonably adequate working capital for Appliances Connection after the closing.

The required satisfaction of the foregoing conditions could delay the completion of the proposed acquisition for a significant period of time or prevent it from occurring. Any delay in completing the proposed acquisition could cause our company not to realize some or all of the benefits that the parties expect our company to achieve. Further, there can be no assurance that the conditions to the closing of the proposed acquisition will be satisfied or waived or that the proposed acquisition will be completed.

Failure or delay to complete the proposed acquisition could negatively impact our business, financial condition, results of operations or stock price.

Completion of the proposed acquisition is conditioned upon the satisfaction of certain closing conditions, including those discussed above, and other closing conditions customary for a transaction of this size and type. The required conditions to closing may not be satisfied in a timely manner, if at all. If the proposed acquisition is not consummated for these or any other reasons, we may be subject to a number of adverse effects, including:

Furthermore, if the proposed acquisition is not completed, there can be no assurance that we will be able to find another target business on terms as favorable as those of the proposed acquisition.

We have incurred and expect to continue to incur substantial transaction-related costs in connection with the proposed acquisition.

We have incurred, and expect to continue to incur, a number of non-recurring transaction-related costs associated with completing the proposed acquisition. These fees and costs have been, and will continue to be, substantial. Non-recurring transaction costs include, but are not limited to, fees paid to legal, financial and accounting advisors, filing fees and printing costs. Additional unanticipated costs may be incurred, which may be higher than expected and could have a material adverse effect on the new business’s financial condition and operating results.

As a result of the proposed acquisition, our company may have undisclosed liabilities and any such liabilities could harm our revenues, business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.

We conducted due diligence on Appliances Connection. However, the due diligence process may not reveal all material liabilities of Appliances Connection currently existing or which may be asserted in the future against our company relating to its activities before the consummation of the proposed acquisition transaction. There can be no assurance that our company will not have any liabilities in connection with the closing of the proposed acquisition that we are unaware of or that we will be successful in enforcing any indemnification provisions or that such indemnification provisions will be adequate to reimburse us. Any such liabilities of Appliances Connection that survive the proposed acquisition could harm our revenues, business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.

Risks Related to our Business and Industry

The COVID-19 pandemic may cause a material adverse effect on our business.

In late 2019, a novel strain of coronavirus, or COVID-19, was reported to have surfaced in Wuhan, China. The virus has since spread to over 150 countries and every state in the United States. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic, and on March 13, 2020, the United States declared a national emergency.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to rapidly evolve. At this time, there continues to be significant volatility and uncertainty relating to the full extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic and the various responses to it will impact our business, operations and financial results.

Most states and cities reacted by instituting quarantines, restrictions on travel, “stay at home” rules, social distancing measures and restrictions on the types of businesses that could continue to operate, as well as guidance in response to the pandemic and the need to contain it. Pursuant to restrictions in Missouri, our showroom was closed from April through June of 2020, but our call center and warehouse continued to operate. Since over 95% of our sales are completed online and our call center and warehouse and distribution operations continued to operate, the restrictions put in place have not had a materially negative impact on our operations. However, the situation surrounding COVID-19 remains fluid, and we may be required to close or limit service offerings in our retail facility or warehouse in response to guidance from applicable government and public health officials, which could adversely affect our operations and revenues.

In addition, we are dependent upon suppliers to provide us with all of the products that we sell. We source, and sell products from domestic and international vendors, and their ability to reliably and efficiently fulfill our orders is critical to our business success. The pandemic has impacted and may continue to impact suppliers and manufacturers of certain of our products. As a result, we have faced and may continue to face delays or difficulty sourcing certain products, which could negatively affect our business and financial results. Even if we are able to find alternate sources for such products, they may cost more, which could adversely impact our profitability and financial condition.

If the current pace of the pandemic cannot be slowed and the spread of COVID-19 is not contained, our business operations could be further delayed or interrupted. We expect that government and health authorities may announce new or extend existing restrictions, which could require us to make further adjustments to our operations in order to comply with any such restrictions. We may also experience limitations in employee resources. In addition, our operations could be disrupted if any of our employees were suspected of having COVID-19, which could require quarantine of some or all such employees or closure of our facilities for disinfection. We may also delay or reduce certain capital spending and related projects until the travel and logistical impacts of the pandemic are lifted, which will delay the completion of such projects. The duration of any business disruption cannot be reasonably estimated at this time but may materially affect our ability to operate our business and result in additional costs.

Further, the global deterioration in economic conditions, which may have an adverse impact on discretionary consumer spending, could also impact our business and demand for our products. For instance, consumer spending may be negatively impacted by general macroeconomic conditions, including a rise in unemployment, and decreased consumer confidence resulting from the pandemic. Changing consumer behaviors as a result of the pandemic may also have a material impact on our revenue.

The spread of COVID-19 has also adversely impacted global economic activity and has contributed to significant volatility and negative pressure in financial markets. The pandemic has resulted, and may continue to result, in a significant disruption of global financial markets, which may reduce our ability to access capital in the future, which could negatively affect our liquidity.

The extent to which the pandemic may impact our results will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted as of the date of this report, including new information that may emerge concerning the severity of the pandemic and steps taken to contain the pandemic or treat its impact, among others. Nevertheless, the pandemic and the current financial, economic and capital markets environment, and future developments in the global supply chain and other areas present material uncertainty and risk with respect to our performance, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

To the extent the pandemic adversely affects our business and financial results, it may also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this “Risk Factors” section.

If we fail to acquire new customers or retain existing customers, or fail to do so in a cost-effective manner, we may not be able to achieve profitability.

Our success depends on our ability to acquire and retain customers in a cost-effective manner. In order to expand our customer base, we must appeal to and acquire customers who have historically used other means of commerce to purchase home goods and may prefer alternatives to our offerings, such as the websites of our competitors or our suppliers’ own websites. We have made significant investments related to customer acquisition and expect to continue to spend significant amounts to acquire additional customers. Our advertising efforts consist primarily of email marketing, affiliate marketing, and to a lesser extent, social media. These efforts are expensive and may not result in the cost-effective acquisition of customers. We cannot assure you that the net profit from new customers we acquire will ultimately exceed the cost of acquiring those customers. If we fail to deliver a quality shopping experience, or if consumers do not perceive the products we offer to be of high value and quality, we may not be able to acquire new customers. If we are unable to acquire new customers who purchase products in numbers sufficient to grow our business, we may not be able to generate the scale necessary to drive beneficial network effects with our suppliers or efficiencies in our logistics network, our net revenue may decrease, and our business, financial condition and operating results may be materially adversely affected.

We believe that many of our new customers originate from word-of-mouth and other non-paid referrals from existing customers. Therefore, we must ensure that our existing customers remain loyal to us in order to continue receiving those referrals. If our efforts to satisfy our existing customers are not successful, we may not be able to acquire new customers in sufficient numbers to continue to grow our business, or we may be required to incur significantly higher marketing expenses in order to acquire new customers.

Our success depends in part on our ability to increase our net revenue per active customer. If our efforts to increase customer loyalty and repeat purchasing as well as maintain high levels of customer engagement are not successful, our growth prospects and revenue will be materially adversely affected.

Our ability to grow our business depends on our ability to retain our existing customer base and generate increased revenue and repeat purchases from this customer base, and maintain high levels of customer engagement. To do this, we must continue to provide our customers and potential customers with a unified, convenient, efficient and differentiated shopping experience by:

If we fail to increase net revenue per active customer, generate repeat purchases or maintain high levels of customer engagement, our growth prospects, operating results and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.

Our business depends on our ability to build and maintain strong brands. We may not be able to maintain and enhance our brands if we receive unfavorable customer complaints, negative publicity or otherwise fail to live up to consumers’ expectations, which could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and growth prospects.

Maintaining and enhancing our brands is critical to expanding our base of customers and suppliers. Our ability to maintain and enhance our brand depends largely on our ability to maintain customer confidence in our product and service offerings, including by delivering products on time and without damage. If customers do not have a satisfactory shopping experience, they may seek out alternative offerings from our competitors and may not return to our sites as often in the future, or at all. In addition, unfavorable publicity regarding, for example, our practices relating to privacy and data protection, product quality, delivery problems, competitive pressures, litigation or regulatory activity, could seriously harm our reputation. Such negative publicity also could have an adverse effect on the size, engagement, and loyalty of our customer base and result in decreased revenue, which could adversely affect our business and financial results. A significant portion of our customers’ brand experience also depends on third parties outside of our control, including suppliers and logistics providers such as R+L Carriers, AM Home Delivery and other third-party delivery agents. If these third parties do not meet our or our customers’ expectations, our brands may suffer irreparable damage.

In addition, maintaining and enhancing these brands may require us to make substantial investments, and these investments may not be successful. If we fail to promote and maintain our brands, or if we incur excessive expenses in this effort, our business, operating results and financial condition may be materially adversely affected. We anticipate that, as our market becomes increasingly competitive, maintaining and enhancing our brands may become increasingly difficult and expensive. Maintaining and enhancing our brands will depend largely on our ability to provide high quality products to our customers and a reliable, trustworthy and profitable sales channel to our suppliers, which we may not be able to do successfully.

Customer complaints or negative publicity about our sites, products, delivery times, customer data handling and security practices or customer support, especially on blogs, social media websites and our sites, could rapidly and severely diminish consumer use of our sites and consumer and supplier confidence in us and result in harm to our brands.

Our efforts to expand our business into new brands, products, services, technologies, and geographic regions will subject us to additional business, legal, financial, and competitive risks and may not be successful.

Our business success depends to some extent on our ability to expand our customer offerings by launching new brands and services and by expanding our existing offerings into new geographies. Launching new brands and services or expanding geographically requires significant upfront investments, including investments in marketing, information technology, and additional personnel. We may not be able to generate satisfactory revenue from these efforts to offset these costs. Any lack of market acceptance of our efforts to launch new brands and services or to expand our existing offerings could have a material adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations. Further, as we continue to expand our fulfillment capability or add new businesses with different requirements, our logistics networks become increasingly complex and operating them becomes more challenging. There can be no assurance that we will be able to operate our networks effectively.

We have also entered and may continue to enter into new markets in which we have limited or no experience, which may not be successful or appealing to our customers. These activities may present new and difficult technological and logistical challenges, and resulting service disruptions, failures or other quality issues may cause customer dissatisfaction and harm our reputation and brand. Further, our current and potential competitors in new market segments may have greater brand recognition, financial resources, longer operating histories and larger customer bases than we do in these areas. As a result, we may not be successful enough in these newer areas to recoup our investments in them. If this occurs, our business, financial condition and operating results may be materially adversely affected.

If we fail to manage our growth effectively, our business, financial condition and operating results could be harmed.

To manage our growth effectively, we must continue to implement our operational plans and strategies, improve and expand our infrastructure of people and information systems and expand, train and manage our employee base. We have rapidly increased employee headcount since our inception to support the growth in our business. To support continued growth, we must effectively integrate, develop and motivate a large number of new employees. We face significant competition for personnel. Failure to manage our hiring needs effectively or successfully integrate our new hires may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

Additionally, the growth of our business places significant demands on our operations, as well as our management and other employees. For example, we typically launch hundreds of promotional events across thousands of products each month on our sites via emails and personalized displays. These events require us to produce updates of our sites and emails to our customers on a daily basis with different products, photos and text. Any surge in online traffic and orders associated with such promotional activities places increased strain on our operations, including our logistics network, and may cause or exacerbate slowdowns or interruptions. The growth of our business may require significant additional resources to meet these daily requirements, which may not scale in a cost-effective manner or may negatively affect the quality of our sites and customer experience. We are also required to manage relationships with a growing number of suppliers, customers and other third parties. Our information technology systems and our internal controls and procedures may not be adequate to support future growth of our supplier and employee base. If we are unable to manage the growth of our organization effectively, our business, financial condition and operating results may be materially adversely affected.

Our ability to obtain continued financing is critical to the growth of our business. We will need additional financing to fund operations, which additional financing may not be available on reasonable terms or at all.

Our future growth, including the potential for future market expansion will require additional capital. We will consider raising additional funds through various financing sources, including the procurement of additional commercial debt financing. However, there can be no assurance that such funds will be available on commercially reasonable terms, if at all. If such financing is not available on satisfactory terms, we may be unable to execute our growth strategy, and operating results may be adversely affected. Any additional debt financing will increase expenses and must be repaid regardless of operating results and may involve restrictions limiting our operating flexibility.

Our ability to obtain financing may be impaired by such factors as the capital markets, both generally and specifically in our industry, which could impact the availability or cost of future financings. If the amount of capital we are able to raise from financing activities, together with our revenues from operations, are not sufficient to satisfy our capital needs, we may be required to decrease the pace of, or eliminate, our future product offerings and market expansion opportunities and potentially curtail operations.

Our third-party loans contain certain terms that could materially adversely affect our financial condition.

We are party to third party loans that are secured by our assets. See Item 7 “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Liquidity and Capital Resources” and “—Recent Developments” for a description of these loans. The loan documents contain customary representations, warranties and affirmative and negative covenants. If an event of default were to occur under these loans, the lenders thereto may pursue all remedies available to them, including declaring the obligations under the loans immediately due and payable, which could materially adversely affect our financial condition. 

Our business is highly competitive. Competition presents an ongoing threat to the success of our business.

Our business is rapidly evolving and intensely competitive, and we have many competitors in different industries. Our competition includes furniture stores, big box retailers, department stores, specialty retailers, and online retailers and marketplaces in the U.S., including:

We expect competition in e-commerce generally to continue to increase. We believe that our ability to compete successfully depends upon many factors both within and beyond our control, including:

Many of our current competitors have, and potential competitors may have, longer operating histories, greater brand recognition, larger fulfillment infrastructures, greater technical capabilities, faster and less costly shipping, significantly greater financial, marketing and other resources and larger customer bases than we do. These factors may allow our competitors to derive greater net revenue and profits from their existing customer base, acquire customers at lower costs or respond more quickly than we can to new or emerging technologies and changes in consumer habits. These competitors may engage in more extensive research and development efforts, undertake more far-reaching marketing campaigns and adopt more aggressive pricing policies, which may allow them to build larger customer bases or generate net revenue from their customer bases more effectively than we do.

Our success depends, in substantial part, on our continued ability to market our products through search engines and social media platforms.

The marketing of our products depends on our ability to cultivate and maintain cost-effective and otherwise satisfactory relationships with search engines and social media platforms, including those operated by Google, Facebook, Bing and Yahoo! These platforms could decide to change their terms and conditions of use at any time (and without notice) and/or significantly increase their fees. No assurances can be provided that we will be able to maintain cost-effective and otherwise satisfactory relationships with these platforms and our inability to do so in the case of one or more of these platforms could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We obtain a significant number of visits via search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo! Search engines frequently change the algorithms that determine the ranking and display of results of a user’s search and may make other changes to the way results are displayed, which can negatively affect the placement of links and, therefore, reduce the number of visits to our website. The growing use of online ad-blocking software may also impact the success of our marketing efforts because we may reach a smaller audience and fail to bring more customers to our website, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

System interruptions that impair customer access to our sites or other performance failures or incidents involving our logistics network, our technology infrastructure or our critical technology partners could damage our business, reputation and brand and substantially harm our business and results of operations.

The satisfactory performance, reliability and availability of our sites, transaction processing systems, logistics network, and technology infrastructure are critical to our reputation and our ability to acquire and retain customers, as well as maintain adequate customer service levels.

For example, if one of our data centers fails or suffers an interruption or degradation of services, we could lose customer data and miss order fulfillment deadlines, which could harm our business. Our systems and operations, including our ability to fulfill customer orders through our logistics network, are also vulnerable to damage or interruption from inclement weather, fire, flood, power loss, telecommunications failure, terrorist attacks, labor disputes, cyber-attacks, data loss, acts of war, break-ins, earthquake and similar events. In the event of a data center failure, the failover to a back-up could take substantial time, during which time our sites could be completely shut down. Further, our back-up services may not effectively process spikes in demand, may process transactions more slowly and may not support all of our site’s functionality.

We use complex proprietary software in our technology infrastructure, which we seek to continually update and improve. We may not always be successful in executing these upgrades and improvements, and the operation of our systems may be subject to failure. In particular, we have in the past and may in the future experience slowdowns or interruptions on some or all of our sites when we are updating them, and new technologies or infrastructures may not be fully integrated with existing systems on a timely basis, or at all. Additionally, if we expand our use of third-party services, including cloud-based services, our technology infrastructure may be subject to increased risk of slowdown or interruption as a result of integration with such services and/or failures by such third parties, which are out of our control. Our net revenue depends on the number of visitors who shop on our sites and the volume of orders we can handle. Unavailability of our sites or reduced order fulfillment performance would reduce the volume of goods sold and could also materially adversely affect consumer perception of our brand.

We may experience periodic system interruptions from time to time. In addition, continued growth in our transaction volume, as well as surges in online traffic and orders associated with promotional activities or seasonal trends in our business, place additional demands on our technology platform and could cause or exacerbate slowdowns or interruptions. If there is a substantial increase in the volume of traffic on our sites or the number of orders placed by customers, we may be required to further expand and upgrade our technology, logistics network, transaction processing systems and network infrastructure. There can be no assurance that we will be able to accurately project the rate or timing of increases, if any, in the use of our sites or expand and upgrade our systems and infrastructure to accommodate such increases on a timely basis. In order to remain competitive, we must continue to enhance and improve the responsiveness, functionality and features of our sites, which is particularly challenging given the rapid rate at which new technologies, customer preferences and expectations and industry standards and practices are evolving in the e-commerce industry. Accordingly, we redesign and enhance various functions on our sites on a regular basis, and we may experience instability and performance issues as a result of these changes.

Any slowdown, interruption or performance failure of our sites and the underlying technology and logistics infrastructure could harm our business, reputation and our ability to acquire, retain and serve our customers, which could materially adversely affect our results of operations.

Our failure or the failure of third-party service providers to protect our sites, networks and systems against security breaches, or otherwise to protect our confidential information, could damage our reputation and brand and substantially harm our business and operating results.

We collect, maintain, transmit and store data about our customers, employees, contractors, suppliers, vendors and others, including credit card information and personally identifiable information, as well as other confidential and proprietary information. We also employ third-party service providers that store, process and transmit certain proprietary, personal and confidential information on our behalf. We rely on encryption and authentication technology licensed from third parties in an effort to securely transmit, encrypt, anonymize or pseudonymize certain confidential and sensitive information, including credit card numbers. Advances in computer capabilities, new technological discoveries or other developments may result in the whole or partial failure of this technology to protect transaction and personal data or other confidential and sensitive information from being breached or compromised. Our security measures, and those of our third-party service providers, may not detect or prevent all attempts to hack our systems, denial-of-service attacks, viruses, malicious software, break-ins, phishing attacks, social engineering, security breaches or other attacks and similar disruptions that may jeopardize the security of information stored in or transmitted by our sites, networks and systems or that we or our third-party service providers otherwise maintain, including payment card systems and human resources management platforms. We and our service providers may not anticipate or prevent all types of attacks until after they have already been launched, and techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to or sabotage systems change frequently and may not be known until launched against us or our third-party service providers. In addition, security breaches can also occur as a result of non-technical issues, including intentional or inadvertent breaches by our employees or by persons with whom we have commercial relationships.

Breaches of our security measures or those of our third-party service providers or cyber security incidents could result in unauthorized access to our sites, networks and systems; unauthorized access to and misappropriation of personal information, including consumers’ and employees’ personally identifiable information, or other confidential or proprietary information of ourselves or third parties; limited or terminated access to certain payment methods or fines or higher transaction fees to use such methods; viruses, worms, spyware or other malware being served from our sites, networks or systems; deletion or modification of content or the display of unauthorized content on our sites; interruption, disruption or malfunction of operations; costs relating to breach remediation, deployment or training of additional personnel and protection technologies, responses to governmental investigations and media inquiries and coverage; engagement of third party experts and consultants; litigation, regulatory action and other potential liabilities. If any of these breaches of security occur, our reputation and brand could be damaged, our business may suffer, we could be required to expend significant capital and other resources to alleviate problems caused by such breaches and we could be exposed to a risk of loss, litigation or regulatory action and possible liability. In addition, any party who is able to illicitly obtain a customer’s password could access that customer’s transaction data or personal information. Any compromise or breach of our security measures, or those of our third-party service providers, could violate applicable privacy, data security and other laws, and cause significant legal and financial exposure, adverse publicity and a loss of confidence in our security measures, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results. We may need to devote significant resources to protect against security breaches or to address problems caused by breaches, diverting resources from the growth and expansion of our business.

We may be subject to product liability and other similar claims if people or property are harmed by the products we sell.

Some of the products we sell may expose us to product liability and other claims and litigation (including class actions) or regulatory action relating to safety, personal injury, death or environmental or property damage. Some of our agreements with members of our supply chain may not indemnify us from product liability for a particular product, and some members of our supply chain may not have sufficient resources or insurance to satisfy their indemnity and defense obligations. Although we maintain liability insurance, we cannot be certain that our coverage will be adequate for liabilities actually incurred or that insurance will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all.

Risks associated with the suppliers from whom our products are sourced could materially adversely affect our financial performance as well as our reputation and brand.

We depend on our ability to provide our customers with a wide range of products from qualified suppliers in a timely and efficient manner. Political and economic instability, the financial stability of suppliers, suppliers’ ability to meet our standards, labor problems experienced by suppliers, the availability or cost of raw materials, merchandise quality issues, currency exchange rates, trade tariff developments, transport availability and cost, transport security, inflation, and other factors relating to our suppliers are beyond our control.

Our agreements with most of our suppliers do not provide for the long-term availability of merchandise or the continuation of particular pricing practices, nor do they usually restrict such suppliers from selling products to other buyers. There can be no assurance that our current suppliers will continue to seek to sell us products on current terms or that we will be able to establish new or otherwise extend current supply relationships to ensure product acquisitions in a timely and efficient manner and on acceptable commercial terms. Our ability to develop and maintain relationships with reputable suppliers and offer high quality merchandise to our customers is critical to our success. If we are unable to develop and maintain relationships with suppliers that would allow us to offer a sufficient amount and variety of quality merchandise on acceptable commercial terms, our ability to satisfy our customers’ needs, and therefore our long-term growth prospects, would be materially adversely affected.

Further, we rely on our suppliers’ representations of product quality, safety and compliance with applicable laws and standards. If our suppliers or other vendors violate applicable laws, regulations or our supplier code of conduct, or implement practices regarded as unethical, unsafe, or hazardous to the environment, it could damage our reputation and negatively affect our operating results. Further, concerns regarding the safety and quality of products provided by our suppliers could cause our customers to avoid purchasing those products from us, or avoid purchasing products from us altogether, even if the basis for the concern is outside of our control. As such, any issue, or perceived issue, regarding the quality and safety of any items we sell, regardless of the cause, could adversely affect our brand, reputation, operations and financial results. 

We also are unable to predict whether any of the countries in which our suppliers’ products are currently manufactured or may be manufactured in the future will be subject to new, different, or additional trade restrictions imposed by the U.S. or foreign governments or the likelihood, type or effect of any such restrictions. Any event causing a disruption or delay of imports from suppliers with international manufacturing operations, including the imposition of additional import restrictions, restrictions on the transfer of funds or increased tariffs or quotas, could increase the cost or reduce the supply of merchandise available to our customers and materially adversely affect our financial performance as well as our reputation and brand. Furthermore, some or all of our suppliers’ foreign operations may be adversely affected by political and financial instability, resulting in the disruption of trade from exporting countries, restrictions on the transfer of funds or other trade disruptions.

In addition, our business with foreign suppliers may be affected by changes in the value of the U.S. dollar relative to other foreign currencies. For example, any movement by any other foreign currency against the U.S. dollar may result in higher costs to us for those goods. Declines in foreign currencies and currency exchange rates might negatively affect the profitability and business prospects of one or more of our foreign suppliers. This, in turn, might cause such foreign suppliers to demand higher prices for merchandise in their effort to offset any lost profits associated with any currency devaluation, delay merchandise shipments, or discontinue selling to us altogether, any of which could ultimately reduce our sales or increase our costs.

Our suppliers have imposed conditions in our business arrangements with them. If we are unable to continue satisfying these conditions, or such suppliers impose additional restrictions with which we cannot comply, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

Our suppliers have strict conditions for doing business with them. Several are sizeable such as General Electric, Whirlpool and DMI. If we cannot satisfy these conditions or if they impose additional or more restrictive conditions that we cannot satisfy, our business would be materially adversely affected. It would be materially detrimental to our business if these suppliers decided to no longer do business with us, increased the pricing at which they allow us to purchase their goods or impose other restrictions or conditions that make it more difficult for us to work with them. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

Our dependence on one supplier for a substantial portion of our purchases makes us vulnerable to a disruption in the supply of its products.

We rely on Whirlpool for a substantial portion of product purchases. For the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, approximately 38.0% and 44.1%, respectively, of our total purchases were from Whirlpool. As a result, any of the following could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations:

Our agreement with Whirlpool is terminable at will by either party upon short notice, so does not provide for the long-term availability of products, nor does it provide for the continuation of particular pricing practices. There can be no assurance that Whirlpool will continue to sell us products or that we will be able to establish new supply relationships to ensure similar product acquisitions in a timely and efficient manner and on acceptable commercial terms.

Successful performance of these supply agreement is critical to our success. If the supply relationship is affected adversely, we may be unable to replace quickly or effectively the products sold to us by Whirlpool. Significant disruptions could have a dramatic effect on our performance.

We may be unable to source new suppliers or strengthen our relationships with current suppliers.

We have relationships with over 240 suppliers. Our agreements with suppliers are generally terminable at will by either party upon short notice. If we do not maintain our existing relationships or build new relationships with suppliers on acceptable commercial terms, we may not be able to maintain a broad selection of merchandise, and our business and prospects would suffer severely.

In order to attract quality suppliers, we must:

If we are unable to provide our suppliers with a compelling return on investment and an ability to increase their sales, we may be unable to maintain and/or expand our supplier network, which would negatively impact our business.

We depend on our suppliers to perform certain services regarding the products that we offer.

As part of offering our suppliers’ products for sale on our sites, suppliers are often responsible for conducting a number of traditional retail operations with respect to their respective products, including maintaining inventory and preparing merchandise for shipment to our customers. In these instances, we may be unable to ensure that suppliers will perform these services to our or our customers’ satisfaction in a manner that provides our customer with a unified brand experience or on commercially reasonable terms. If our customers become dissatisfied with the services provided by our suppliers, our business, reputation and brands could suffer.

We depend on our relationships with third parties, and changes in our relationships with these parties could adversely impact our revenue and profits.

We rely on third parties to operate certain elements of our business. For example, we primarily uses R+L Carriers for most of our larger shipping services and AM Home Delivery for furniture deliveries, and we use carriers such as FedEx, UPS, DHL and the U.S. Postal Service to deliver small parcel products. As a result, we may be subject to shipping delays or disruptions caused by inclement weather, natural disasters, system interruptions and technology failures, labor activism, health epidemics or bioterrorism. We are also subject to risks of breakage or other damage during delivery by any of these third parties. We also use and rely on other services from third parties, such as retail partner services, telecommunications services, customs, consolidation and shipping services, as well as warranty, installation and design services.

We may be unable to maintain these relationships, and these services may also be subject to outages and interruptions that are not within our control. For example, failures by our telecommunications providers have in the past and may in the future interrupt our ability to provide phone support to our customers. Third parties may in the future determine they no longer wish to do business with us or may decide to take other actions or make changes to their practices that could harm our business. We may also determine that we no longer want to do business with them. If products are not delivered in a timely fashion or are damaged during the delivery process, or if we are not able to provide adequate customer support or other services or offerings, our customers could become dissatisfied and cease buying products through our sites, which would adversely affect our operating results.

Certain trends in our business place increased strain on our operations.

We experience surges in orders associated with promotional activities. This activity may place additional demands on our technology systems and logistics network and could cause or exacerbate slowdowns or interruptions. Any such system, site or service interruptions could prevent us from efficiently receiving or fulfilling orders, which may reduce the volume or quality of goods or services we sell and may cause customer dissatisfaction and harm our reputation and brand. These activities are primarily during holidays such as Presidents Day, Memorial Day, July 4^th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas and Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Our business may be adversely affected if we are unable to provide our customers a cost-effective shopping platform that is able to respond and adapt to rapid changes in technology.

The number of people who access the Internet through devices other than personal computers, including mobile phones, smartphones, handheld computers such as notebooks and tablets, video game consoles, and television set-top devices, has increased dramatically in the past few years. We continually upgrade existing technologies and business applications to keep pace with these rapidly changing and continuously evolving technologies, and we may be required to implement new technologies or business applications in the future. The implementation of these upgrades and changes requires significant investments and as new devices and platforms are released, it is difficult to predict the problems we may encounter in developing applications for these alternative devices and platforms. Additionally, we may need to devote significant resources to the support and maintenance of such applications once created. Our results of operations may be affected by the timing, effectiveness and costs associated with the successful implementation of any upgrades or changes to our systems and infrastructure to accommodate such alternative devices and platforms. Further, in the event that it is more difficult or less compelling for our customers to buy products from us on their mobile or other devices, or if our customers choose not to buy products from us on such devices or to use mobile or other products that do not offer access to our sites, our customer growth could be harmed and our business, financial condition and operating results may be materially adversely affected.

Significant merchandise returns could harm our business.

We allow our customers to return products, subject to our return policy. If merchandise returns are significant, our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be harmed. Further, we modify our policies relating to returns from time to time, which may result in customer dissatisfaction or an increase in the number of product returns. Many of our products are large and require special handling and delivery. From time to time our products are damaged in transit, which can increase return rates and harm our brand.

Uncertainties in economic conditions and their impact on consumer spending patterns, particularly in the home goods segment, could adversely impact our operating results.

Consumers may view a substantial portion of the products we offer as discretionary items rather than necessities. As a result, our results of operations are sensitive to changes in macro-economic conditions that impact consumer spending, including discretionary spending. Some of the factors adversely affecting consumer spending include levels of unemployment; consumer debt levels; changes in net worth based on market changes and uncertainty; home foreclosures and changes in home values or the overall housing, residential construction or home improvement markets; fluctuating interest rates; credit availability, including mortgages, home equity loans and consumer credit; government actions; fluctuating fuel and other energy costs; fluctuating commodity prices and general uncertainty regarding the overall future economic environment. Adverse economic changes in any of the regions in which we sell our products could reduce consumer confidence and could negatively affect net revenue and have a material adverse effect on our operating results.

Our business relies heavily on email and other messaging services, and any restrictions on the sending of emails or messages or an inability to timely deliver such communications could materially adversely affect our net revenue and business.

Our business is highly dependent upon email and other messaging services for promoting our sites and products. Daily promotions offered through emails and other messages sent by us, or on our behalf by our vendors, generate a significant portion of our net revenue. We provide daily emails to customers and other visitors informing them of what is available for purchase on our sites that day, and we believe these messages are an important part of our customer experience and help generate a substantial portion of our net revenue. If we are unable to successfully deliver emails or other messages to our subscribers, or if subscribers decline to open our emails or other messages, our net revenue and profitability would be materially adversely affected. Changes in how webmail applications organize and prioritize email may also reduce the number of subscribers opening our emails. For example, in 2013 Google Inc.’s Gmail service began offering a feature that organizes incoming emails into categories (for example, primary, social and promotions). Such categorization or similar inbox organizational features may result in our emails being delivered in a less prominent location in a subscriber’s inbox or viewed as “spam” by our subscribers and may reduce the likelihood of that subscriber opening our emails. Actions by third parties to block, impose restrictions on or charge for the delivery of emails or other messages could also adversely impact our business. From time to time, Internet service providers or other third parties may block bulk email transmissions or otherwise experience technical difficulties that result in our inability to successfully deliver emails or other messages to third parties. Changes in the laws or regulations that limit our ability to send such communications or impose additional requirements upon us in connection with sending such communications would also materially adversely impact our business. Our use of email and other messaging services to send communications about our sites or other matters may also result in legal claims against us, which may cause us increased expenses, and if successful might result in fines and orders with costly reporting and compliance obligations or might limit or prohibit our ability to send emails or other messages. We also rely on social networking messaging services to send communications and to encourage customers to send communications. Changes to the terms of these social networking services to limit promotional communications, any restrictions that would limit our ability or our customers’ ability to send communications through their services, disruptions or downtime experienced by these social networking services or decline in the use of or engagement with social networking services by customers and potential customers could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

We are subject to risks related to online payment methods.

We accept payments using a variety of methods, including credit card, debit card, PayPal, credit accounts and gift cards. As we offer new payment options to consumers, we may be subject to additional regulations, compliance requirements and fraud. For certain payment methods, including credit and debit cards, we pay interchange and other fees, which may increase over time and raise our operating costs and lower profitability. We are also subject to payment card association operating rules and certification requirements, including the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard and rules governing electronic funds transfers, which could change or be reinterpreted to make it difficult or impossible for us to comply. As our business changes, we may also be subject to different rules under existing standards, which may require new assessments that involve costs above what we currently pay for compliance. If we fail to comply with the rules or requirements of any provider of a payment method we accept, if the volume of fraud in our transactions limits or terminates our rights to use payment methods we currently accept, or if a data breach occurs relating to our payment systems, we may, among other things, be subject to fines or higher transaction fees and may lose, or face restrictions placed upon, our ability to accept credit card and debit card payments from consumers or to facilitate other types of online payments. If any of these events were to occur, our business, financial condition and operating results could be materially adversely affected.

We occasionally receive orders placed with fraudulent credit card data. We may suffer losses as a result of orders placed with fraudulent credit card data even if the associated financial institution approved payment of the orders. Under current credit card practices, we may be liable for fraudulent credit card transactions. If we are unable to detect or control credit card fraud, our liability for these transactions could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Government regulation of the internet and e-commerce is evolving, and unfavorable changes or failure by us to comply with these regulations could substantially harm our business and results of operations.

We are subject to general business regulations and laws as well as regulations and laws specifically governing the Internet and e-commerce. Existing and future regulations and laws could impede the growth of the Internet, e- commerce or mobile commerce. These regulations and laws may involve taxes, tariffs, privacy and data security, anti-spam, content protection, electronic contracts and communications, consumer protection, Internet neutrality and gift cards. It is not clear how existing laws governing issues such as property ownership, sales and other taxes and consumer privacy apply to the Internet as the vast majority of these laws were adopted prior to the advent of the Internet and do not contemplate or address the unique issues raised by the Internet or e-commerce. It is possible that general business regulations and laws, or those specifically governing the Internet or e-commerce, may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another and may conflict with other rules or our practices. We cannot be sure that our practices have complied, comply or will comply fully with all such laws and regulations. Any failure, or perceived failure, by us to comply with any of these laws or regulations could result in damage to our reputation, a loss in business and proceedings or actions against us by governmental entities or others. Any such proceeding or action could hurt our reputation, force us to spend significant amounts in defense of these proceedings, distract our management, increase our costs of doing business, decrease the use of our sites by consumers and suppliers and may result in the imposition of monetary liability. We may also be contractually liable to indemnify and hold harmless third parties from the costs or consequences of non-compliance with any such laws or regulations. Adverse legal or regulatory developments could substantially harm our business. Further, if we enter into new market segments or geographical areas and expand the products and services we offer, we may be subject to additional laws and regulatory requirements or prohibited from conducting our business, or certain aspects of it, in certain jurisdictions. We will incur additional costs complying with these additional obligations and any failure or perceived failure to comply would adversely affect our business and reputation.

Failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations relating to privacy, data protection and consumer protection, or the expansion of current or the enactment of new laws or regulations relating to privacy, data protection and consumer protection, could adversely affect our business and our financial condition.

A variety of laws and regulations govern the collection, use, retention, sharing, export and security of personal information. Laws and regulations relating to privacy, data protection and consumer protection are evolving and subject to potentially differing interpretations. These requirements may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another or may conflict with other rules or our practices. As a result, our practices may not comply, or may not comply in the future with all such laws, regulations, requirements and obligations. Any failure, or perceived failure, by us to comply with our posted privacy policies or with any applicable privacy or consumer protection- related laws, regulations, industry self-regulatory principles, industry standards or codes of conduct, regulatory guidance, orders to which we may be subject or other legal obligations relating to privacy or consumer protection could adversely affect our reputation, brand and business, and may result in claims, proceedings or actions against us by governmental entities or others or other liabilities or require us to change our operations and/or cease using certain data sets. Any such claim, proceeding or action could hurt our reputation, brand and business, force us to incur significant expenses in defense of such proceedings, distract our management, increase our costs of doing business, result in a loss of customers and suppliers and may result in the imposition of monetary penalties. We may also be contractually required to indemnify and hold harmless third parties from the costs or consequences of non-compliance with any laws, regulations or other legal obligations relating to privacy or consumer protection or any inadvertent or unauthorized use or disclosure of data that we store or handle as part of operating our business.

Federal, state and international governmental authorities continue to evaluate the privacy implications inherent in the use of proprietary or third-party “cookies” and other methods of online tracking for behavioral advertising and other purposes. U.S. and foreign governments have enacted, have considered or are considering legislation or regulations that could significantly restrict the ability of companies and individuals to engage in these activities, such as by regulating the level of consumer notice and consent required before a company can employ cookies or other electronic tracking tools or the use of data gathered with such tools. Additionally, some providers of consumer devices and web browsers have implemented, or announced plans to implement, means to make it easier for Internet users to prevent the placement of cookies or to block other tracking technologies, which could if widely adopted significantly reduce the effectiveness of such practices and technologies. The regulation of the use of cookies and other current online tracking and advertising practices or a loss in our ability to make effective use of services that employ such technologies could increase our costs of operations and limit our ability to acquire new customers on cost-effective terms and consequently, materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

In addition, various federal, state and foreign legislative and regulatory bodies, or self-regulatory organizations, may expand current laws or regulations, enact new laws or regulations or issue revised rules or guidance regarding privacy, data protection and consumer protection. Any such changes may force us to incur substantial costs or require us to change our business practices. This could compromise our ability to pursue our growth strategy effectively and may adversely affect our ability to acquire customers or otherwise harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

Changes in tax treatment of companies engaged in e-commerce may adversely affect the commercial use of our sites and our financial results.

Due to the global nature of the Internet, it is possible that various states or foreign countries might attempt to impose additional or new regulation on our business or levy additional or new sales, income or other taxes relating to our activities. Tax authorities at the international, federal, state and local levels are currently reviewing the appropriate treatment of companies engaged in e-commerce. New or revised international, federal, state or local tax regulations or court decisions may subject us or our customers to additional sales, income and other taxes. For example, on June 21, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a 5-4 majority decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., 138 S. Ct. 2080 (2018) where the Court held, among other things, that a state may require an out-of-state seller with no physical presence in the state to collect and remit sales taxes on goods the seller ships to consumers in the state, overturning existing court precedent. Other new or revised taxes and, in particular, sales taxes, value added tax and similar taxes could increase the cost of doing business online and decrease the attractiveness of selling products over the Internet. New taxes and rulings could also create significant increases in internal costs necessary to capture data and collect and remit taxes. In addition, we may charge sales taxes in jurisdictions where our competitors do not, resulting in our product prices potentially being higher than those of our competitors. As a result, we may lose sales to our competitors in these jurisdictions. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

We rely on the performance of members of management and highly skilled personnel, and if we are unable to attract, develop, motivate and retain well-qualified employees, our business could be harmed.

We believe our success has depended, and continues to depend, on the members of our senior management team. The loss of any of our senior management or other key employees could materially harm our business. Our future success also depends on our continuing ability to attract, develop, motivate and retain highly qualified and skilled employees, particularly mid-level managers and merchandising and technology personnel. The market for such positions is competitive. Qualified individuals are in high demand, and we may incur significant costs to attract them. Our inability to recruit and develop mid-level managers could materially adversely affect our ability to execute our business plan, and we may not be able to find adequate replacements. All of our officers and other U.S. employees are at-will employees, meaning that they may terminate their employment relationship with us at any time, and their knowledge of our business and industry would be extremely difficult to replace. If we do not succeed in attracting well-qualified employees or retaining and motivating existing employees, our business, financial condition and operating results may be materially adversely affected.

We may not be able to adequately protect our intellectual property rights.

We regard our customer lists, domain names, trademarks, trade dress, trade secrets, proprietary technology and similar intellectual property as critical to our success, and we rely on trade secret protection, agreements and other methods with our employees and others to protect our proprietary rights. We might not be able to obtain broad protection for all of our intellectual property. For example, we are the registrant of the Internet domain names for our websites. However, we might not be able to prevent third parties from registering, using or retaining domain names that interfere with our consumer communications or infringe or otherwise decrease the value of our marks, domain names and other proprietary rights.

The protection of our intellectual property rights may require the expenditure of significant financial, managerial and operational resources. We may initiate claims or litigation against others for infringement, misappropriation or violation of our intellectual property rights or proprietary rights or to establish the validity of such rights. Any litigation, whether or not it is resolved in our favor, could result in significant expense to us and divert the efforts of our technical and management personnel, which may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results. Moreover, the steps we take to protect our intellectual property may not adequately protect our rights or prevent third parties from infringing or misappropriating our proprietary rights, and we may not be able to broadly enforce all of our intellectual property rights. Any of our intellectual property rights may be challenged by others or invalidated through administrative process or litigation. Additionally, the process of obtaining intellectual property protections is expensive and time-consuming, and we may not be able to pursue all necessary or desirable actions at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. Even if issued, there can be no assurance that these protections will adequately safeguard our intellectual property, as the legal standards relating to the validity, enforceability and scope of protection of patent and other intellectual property rights are uncertain. We also cannot be certain that others will not independently develop or otherwise acquire equivalent or superior technology or intellectual property rights. We may also be exposed to claims from third parties claiming infringement of their intellectual property rights, or demanding the release or license of open source software or derivative works that we developed using such software (which could include our proprietary code) or otherwise seeking to enforce the terms of the applicable open source license. These claims could result in litigation and could require us to purchase a costly license, publicly release the affected portions of our source code, be limited in or cease using the implicated software unless and until we can re-engineer such software to avoid infringement or change the use of the implicated open source software.

We may be accused of infringing intellectual property rights of third parties.

The e-commerce industry is characterized by vigorous protection and pursuit of intellectual property rights, which has resulted in protracted and expensive litigation for many companies. We may be subject to claims and litigation by third parties that we infringe their intellectual property rights. The costs of supporting such litigation and disputes are considerable, and there can be no assurances that favorable outcomes will be obtained. As our business expands and the number of competitors in our market increases and overlaps occur, we expect that infringement claims may increase in number and significance. Any claims or proceedings against us, whether meritorious or not, could be time-consuming, result in considerable litigation costs, require significant amounts of management time or result in the diversion of significant operational resources, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

We have received in the past, and we may receive in the future, communications alleging that certain items posted on or sold through our sites violate third-party copyrights, designs, marks and trade names or other intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights. Brand and content owners and other proprietary rights owners have actively asserted their purported rights against online companies. In addition to litigation from rights owners, we may be subject to regulatory, civil or criminal proceedings and penalties if governmental authorities believe we have aided and abetted in the sale of counterfeit or infringing products.

Such claims, whether or not meritorious, may result in the expenditure of significant financial, managerial and operational resources, injunctions against us or the payment of damages by us. We may need to obtain licenses from third parties who allege that we have violated their rights, but such licenses may not be available on terms acceptable to us, or at all. These risks have been amplified by the increase in third parties whose sole or primary business is to assert such claims.

We are engaged in legal proceedings that could cause us to incur unforeseen expenses and could occupy a significant amount of our management’s time and attention.

From time to time, we are subject to litigation or claims that could negatively affect our business operations and financial position. Litigation disputes could cause us to incur unforeseen expenses, result in site unavailability, service disruptions, and otherwise occupy a significant amount of our management’s time and attention, any of which could negatively affect our business operations and financial position. We also from time to time receive inquiries and subpoenas and other types of information requests from government authorities and we may become subject to related claims and other actions related to our business activities. While the ultimate outcome of investigations, inquiries, information requests and related legal proceedings is difficult to predict, such matters can be expensive, time-consuming and distracting, and adverse resolutions or settlements of those matters may result in, among other things, modification of our business practices, reputational harm or costs and significant payments, any of which could negatively affect our business operations and financial position.

We may not complete our analysis of our internal control over financial reporting in a timely manner, or these internal controls may not be determined to be effective.

We will be required, pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, to furnish a report by management on, among other things, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting in the second annual report we file with the SEC. This assessment will need to include disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in our internal control over financial reporting. However, our auditors will not be required to formally attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404 until we are no longer a non-accelerated filer or no longer an emerging growth company if we take advantage of the exemptions available to us through the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012, or the JOBS Act.

We are in the very early stages of the costly and challenging process of compiling the system and process documentation necessary to perform the evaluation needed to comply with Section 404. In this regard, we will need to continue to dedicate internal resources, engage outside consultants and adopt a detailed work plan to assess and document the adequacy of internal control over financial reporting, continue steps to improve control processes as appropriate, validate through testing that controls are functioning as documented and implement a continuous reporting and improvement process for internal control over financial reporting. As we transition to the requirements of reporting as a public company, we may need to add additional finance staff. We may not be able to remediate any future material weaknesses, or to complete our evaluation, testing and any required remediation in a timely fashion. During the evaluation and testing process, if we identify one or more material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, we will be unable to assert that our internal controls are effective. If we are unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our auditors are unable to express an opinion on the effectiveness of our internal controls when they are required to issue such opinion, investors could lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which could harm our stock price.

Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock

We may not be able to maintain a listing of our common stock on NYSE American.

Our common stock is currently traded on NYSE American. We must meet certain financial and liquidity criteria to maintain the listing of our common stock on NYSE American. If we fail to meet any listing standards or if we violate any listing requirements, our common stock may be delisted. In addition, our board of directors may determine that the cost of maintaining our listing on a national securities exchange outweighs the benefits of such listing. A delisting of our common stock from NYSE American may materially impair our stockholders’ ability to buy and sell our common stock and could have an adverse effect on the market price of, and the efficiency of the trading market for, our common stock. The delisting of our common stock could significantly impair our ability to raise capital and the value of your investment.

The market price, trading volume and marketability of our common stock may, from time to time, be significantly affected by numerous factors beyond our control, which may materially adversely affect the market price of your common stock, the marketability of your common stock and our ability to raise capital through future equity financings.

The market price and trading volume of our common stock may fluctuate significantly. Many factors that are beyond our control may materially adversely affect the market price of your common stock, the marketability of your common stock and our ability to raise capital through equity financings. These factors include the following

An active, liquid trading market for our common stock may not be sustained, which may make it difficult for you to sell the common stock you purchase.

We cannot predict the extent to which investor interest in us will sustain a trading market or how active and liquid that market may remain. If an active and liquid trading market is not sustained, you may have difficulty selling any of our common stock that you purchase at a price above the price you purchase it or at all. The failure of an active and liquid trading market to continue would likely have a material adverse effect on the value of our common stock. The market price of our common stock may decline, and you may not be able to sell your shares of our common stock at or above the price you paid or at all. An inactive market may also impair our ability to raise capital to continue to fund operations by selling shares and may impair our ability to acquire other companies or technologies by using our shares as consideration.

Certain of our directors could be in a position of conflict of interest.

Our Chairman, Ellery W. Roberts, is the controlling principal of 1847 Partners LLC, or our manager, which provides certain services to us, including administrative supervision and oversight of our day-to-day business operations, for a quarterly management fee equal to $62,500. He may obtain compensation and other benefits in transactions relating to us that involve our manager. Consequently, there exists the possibility for Mr. Roberts to be in a position of conflict. These conflicts may not be resolved in our favor. Such conflicts of interest could have a material adverse effect on our business and operations. Further, the appearance of conflicts of interest created by related party transactions could impair the confidence of our investors. In the case of transactions with these affiliates, there may be an absence of arms’ length negotiations with respect to the terms, conditions and consideration with respect to goods and services provided to or by us.

We have not paid in the past and do not expect to declare or pay dividends in the foreseeable future.

We have not paid in the past and do not expect to declare or pay dividends in the foreseeable future, as we anticipate that we will invest future earnings in the development and growth of our business. Therefore, holders of our common stock will not receive any return on their investment unless they sell their securities, and holders may be unable to sell their securities on favorable terms or at all.

If securities industry analysts do not publish research reports on us, or publish unfavorable reports on us, then the market price and market trading volume of our common stock could be negatively affected.

Any trading market for our common stock may be influenced in part by any research reports that securities industry analysts publish about us. We do not currently have and may never obtain research coverage by securities industry analysts. If no securities industry analysts commence coverage of us, the market price and market trading volume of our common stock could be negatively affected. In the event we are covered by analysts, and one or more of such analysts downgrade our securities, or otherwise reports on us unfavorably, or discontinues coverage of us, the market price and market trading volume of our common stock could be negatively affected.

Future issuances of our common stock or securities convertible into, or exercisable or exchangeable for, our common stock could cause the market price of our common stock to decline and would result in the dilution of your holdings.

Future issuances of our common stock or securities convertible into, or exercisable or exchangeable for, our common stock, could cause the market price of our common stock to decline. We cannot predict the effect, if any, of future issuances of our securities on the price of our common stock. In all events, future issuances of our common stock would result in the dilution of your holdings. In addition, the perception that new issuances of our securities could occur could adversely affect the market price of our common stock.

Future issuances of debt securities, which would rank senior to our common stock upon our bankruptcy or liquidation, and future issuances of preferred stock, which could rank senior to our common stock for the purposes of dividends and liquidating distributions, may adversely affect the level of return you may be able to achieve from an investment in our common stock.

In the future, we may attempt to increase our capital resources by offering debt securities. Upon bankruptcy or liquidation, holders of our debt securities, and lenders with respect to other borrowings we may make, would receive distributions of our available assets prior to any distributions being made to holders of our common stock. Moreover, if we issue preferred stock, the holders of such preferred stock could be entitled to preferences over holders of common stock in respect of the payment of dividends and the payment of liquidating distributions. Because our decision to issue debt or preferred stock in any future offering, or borrow money from lenders, will depend in part on market conditions and other factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing or nature of any such future offerings or borrowings. Holders of our common stock must bear the risk that any future offerings we conduct or borrowings we make may adversely affect the level of return, if any, they may be able to achieve from an investment in our common stock.

If our shares of common stock become subject to the penny stock rules, it would become more difficult to trade our shares.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, has adopted rules that regulate broker-dealer practices in connection with transactions in penny stocks. Penny stocks are generally equity securities with a price of less than $5.00, other than securities registered on certain national securities exchanges or authorized for quotation on certain automated quotation systems, provided that current price and volume information with respect to transactions in such securities is provided by the exchange or system. If we do not retain a listing on NYSE American or another national securities exchange and if the price of our common stock is less than $5.00, our common stock could be deemed a penny stock. The penny stock rules require a broker-dealer, before a transaction in a penny stock not otherwise exempt from those rules, to deliver a standardized risk disclosure document containing specified information. In addition, the penny stock rules require that before effecting any transaction in a penny stock not otherwise exempt from those rules, a broker-dealer must make a special written determination that the penny stock is a suitable investment for the purchaser and receive (i) the purchaser’s written acknowledgment of the receipt of a risk disclosure statement; (ii) a written agreement to transactions involving penny stocks; and (iii) a signed and dated copy of a written suitability statement. These disclosure requirements may have the effect of reducing the trading activity in the secondary market for our common stock, and therefore stockholders may have difficulty selling their shares.

We are subject to ongoing public reporting requirements that are less rigorous than Exchange Act rules for companies that are not emerging growth companies and our stockholders could receive less information than they might expect to receive from more mature public companies.

We are required to publicly report on an ongoing basis as an “emerging growth company” (as defined in JOBS Act) under the reporting rules set forth under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act. For so long as we remain an emerging growth company, we may take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other Exchange Act reporting companies that are not emerging growth companies, including but not limited to:

In addition, Section 107 of the JOBS Act also provides that an emerging growth company can take advantage of the extended transition period provided in Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act, for complying with new or revised accounting standards. In other words, an emerging growth company can delay the adoption of certain accounting standards until those standards would otherwise apply to private companies. We have elected to take advantage of the benefits of this extended transition period. Our consolidated financial statements may therefore not be comparable to those of companies that comply with such new or revised accounting standards.

We expect to take advantage of these reporting exemptions until we are no longer an emerging growth company. We would remain an emerging growth company for up to five years, although if the market value of our common stock that is held by non-affiliates exceeds $700 million as of any June 30 before that time, we would cease to be an emerging growth company as of the following December 31.

Because we will be subject to ongoing public reporting requirements that are less rigorous than Exchange Act rules for companies that are not emerging growth companies, our stockholders could receive less information than they might expect to receive from more mature public companies. We cannot predict if investors will find our common stock less attractive if we elect to rely on these exemptions, or if taking advantage of these exemptions would result in less active trading or more volatility in the price of our common stock.

Anti-takeover provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of our company more difficult, and limit attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management.

Certain provisions of Delaware law and our certificate of incorporation and bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control or changes in our management. Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws include provisions that:

These provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our board of directors, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management. They may also make it more difficult for a third party to acquire us, even if the third party’s offer may be considered beneficial by many of our stockholders. As a result, our stockholders may be limited in their ability to obtain a premium for their shares.

These provisions, alone or together, could delay or prevent hostile takeovers and changes in control or changes in our management.