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The day was particularly bad for companies engaged in e-commerce. Amazon.com’s less-than-stellar earnings and guidance last month were "the canary in the coal mine" for the industry, Barron's Teresa Rivas wrote today. Online retailers are facing a double-whammy of consumers slowing their spending in an inflationary environment, plus the reopening of bricks-and-mortar alternatives that all-but disappeared during the pandemic. 

The first-quarter reports from other e-commerce companies including eBay, Etsy, Shopify, and Wayfair have followed Amazon's precedent.

Teresa summed it up:

A more guarded outlook is a common theme among the companies, and one that investors are likely least happy to hear. Expectations weren’t high going into the quarter, given the Amazon results and overall concerns about consumer spending. E-commerce names in particular look vulnerable as people stocked up on goods during the pandemic, and are now shifting their inflation-reduced spending capacity to experiences like travel and dining out. Moreover, shoppers are also returning to stores more frequently.

For eBay and Etsy—which both reported yesterday evening—revenue and earnings for the first few months of 2022 were fine, meeting Wall Street's expectations. Their guidance was abysmal, however, falling far short of the mark. Both companies are seeing deteriorating trends in the current quarter.

"Since late February, when the war in Ukraine began, we have seen lower e-commerce traffic, inflation in gas prices and home energy costs and historically low consumer confidence, particularly in the U.K. and Germany," eBay CEO Jamie Iannone said on yesterday's earnings call. "As we look forward to the rest of 2022, we find ourselves in the most dynamic macro environment I have seen since returning to eBay as CEO. We expect more near-term headwinds to e-commerce growth rates this year."

eBay stock dropped 12% today, to stretch its 2022 loss to almost 28%. Etsy tumbled 17%, while the broader S&P 500 consumer discretionary sector fell 5.6%.

This morning, results and guidance from Shopify and Wayfair did nothing to relieve investors' concerns about the e-commerce sector.

Amazon stock has lost 30% this year, Etsy is down 58%, Shopify has dropped 70%, and Wayfair is off 64%.

Read Barron's coverage of each company's latest earnings: Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopify, and Wayfair. And find the rest of Teresa's report on the industry here.