Is Wayfair Legit or a Scam? Unraveling the Truth

Unsure about the reliability of selling on Wayfair?

With thousands of negative reviews about the company online, many people doubt the legitimacy of the furniture retailer.

Luckily, by conducting in-depth research on the company, you can figure out whether it’s a trustworthy business partner.

We’ve conducted comprehensive research on the platform, and in this post, we’ll answer the question: Is Wayfair legit?

We’ll also provide you with crucial information about selling on the platform.

What Is Wayfair?

Wayfair is a large furniture and home accessories online retailer. It offers customers millions of home decor products.

Shoppers can find everything they want on the website, from couches to chairs, rugs, futons, and more.

This results from the company partnering with thousands of sellers who provide all the products on the website.

Wayfair is also renowned for its competitive prices and ongoing deals. They exclusively sell online and ship to 50 US states as well as Canada, the UK, and Germany.

Although the company has been well-known for years, its popularity and revenues have skyrocketed since COVID-19.

It was one of the online companies that achieved massive profits during the pandemic. As a result, Wayfair has reached a customer base of 22 million annual buyers as of 2022.

Wayfair isn’t among the ten big players in the US furniture market. Still, the company currently has a market cap of $5.37 billion.

How Does Wayfair Work?

Selling on Wayfair significantly differs from other online retailers like Amazon and eBay, as Wayfair follows a dropshipping business model.

When you offer your products on the platform, you aren’t a seller but a supplier.

This means that you sell your products to Wayfair at wholesale price, and the platform sets their retail price.

That way, Wayfair doesn’t charge you fees for selling with them. Instead, the company generates profits from the margin it adds to the wholesale price.

Here’s how the entire process works:

1. You create a Wayfair partner account, list your products on the platform, and set their wholesale price. You also offer Wayfair some allowances for promotion and defects.
2. Wayfair reviews the products, sets their retail prices, and starts displaying them to potential buyers.
3. Wayfair promotes its products and tries to attract customers using different marketing and advertising strategies.
4. When a customer orders one of your products, the platform notifies you.
5. You prepare, package, and contact the delivery company to deliver the item to the customer. Wayfair pays the cost of shipping.
6. The customer pays the retail price. You receive the wholesale price, and Wayfair keeps the difference.
7. You receive payments every 30 or 60 days, depending on your selected option.

Common Questions to Understand

The untraditional business model that Wayfair follows evokes a lot of questions about the platform. Here are the two most common ones:

Why Is Wayfair So Cheap?

Wayfair offers decent quality products at lower prices than brick-and-mortar retailers and even other online stores. They can do this for three main reasons:

1. They don’t incur warehouse or showroom costs as they don’t have physical stores. Instead, they manage all their operations exclusively online.
2. Wayfair has thousands of partners. Many of them offer products made of mid-quality materials rather than high-quality ones. That way, Wayfair sources these products at low costs and sells them at competitive prices.
3. They save considerable costs on the fulfillment process. That’s because suppliers take care of the packaging and the delivery. Wayfair only pays the shipping fees.

Is Wayfair Ethical?

Wayfair’s official website states it’s committed to following high ethical standards in its business operations.

They also claim to run their business responsibly and only deal with suppliers who adhere to strict human rights guidelines.

That said, Wayfair faced what many describe as an unethical issue in 2019. This occurred when they sold their products to a federal detention camp in Texas that houses immigrant children.

Many people, including hundreds of company workers, saw this action as immoral. As a result, hundreds of employees staged protests against the company’s practices.

Employees considered the company to be involved in supporting conditions that don’t comply with human rights standards.

This crisis received extensive media coverage from leading broadcasters, like BBC News and NBC, among others.

It also evoked thousands of social media reactions in support of the employees.

Is Wayfair Legit?

Yes, Wayfair is a legitimate and trusted platform you can sell and buy on without worries. 

It’s an established company that has been operating for over two decades, serving millions of customers in and out of the US.

Despite the thousands of negative reviews about the company online, Wayfair is still a good platform to get your furniture for these reasons:

22-million customer base

Due to the vast customer base, it’s expected that a few thousand buyers would be dissatisfied with their experience. This isn’t only the case with Wayfair. It’s also true for all the other giant online retailers like Amazon and Walmart.

Decent shopping experience

Wayfair provides decent products and services that match the low prices they charge. Customers who expect this level of quality will be satisfied.

Seller and product reviews

Each seller on Wayfair is assigned a rating out of 5 stars. To find out how customers have rated a specific seller, click on their name.

Likewise, buyers can review and rate all the products on the platform. You can see each product review on its page.

This makes the whole shopping experience transparent, as you can access feedback for both the seller and the item.

Partners get many advantages

Wayfair provides their partners access to a huge customer base.

They also design an easy selling and inventory management process with real-time performance data. The company also provides guaranteed payments.

Equally important, Wayfair has a robust advertising system worth over $1.4 billion to advertise its products and help partners increase their sales.

Reliable return process

The return process on Wayfair can take longer than most other retailers. However, it’s a complete process, and customers always receive their refunds.

Is Wayfair Reliable?

Whether Wayfair is reliable depends on your expectation as a buyer or seller. 

As a seller, selling to Wayfair is a lucrative opportunity. The platform will help you reach an immense number of buyers.

It’ll also help you in promoting your products and selling them. Wayfair ensures you receive your payments on time as well.

For buyers, when shopping on Wayfair, you get what you pay for. That way, it’s a platform to count on for purchasing decent quality products and receiving good service at affordable prices.

However, if you expect top-notch products and services, Wayfair shouldn’t be your choice.

As of writing these words, Wayfair attracts 115 million monthly visitors. Many of them rely on the platform for furnishing their homes and offices.

Is Wayfair Safe?

Yes, Wayfair is a safe platform to deal with regarding the shopping experience, payment security, and return policy.

Despite what some reviewers say, Wayfair is far from being a scamming website.

The website follows an SSL protocol that encrypts your private information, including payment details. This is to make it impossible for anyone to access these data.

The website also has a good privacy policy. Additionally, it offers a wide variety of payment options that are well-known for their high level of safety, such as PayPal.

So, you can be confident using Wayfair as a buyer or a supplier.

What Are Users Saying About Wayfair?

There are multiple aspects that both customers and sellers like about using Wayfair. Here are the most common ones:

What Trustpilot Reviewers Liked About Wayfair

Although Wayfair’s overall rating on Trustpilot is “bad,” a lot of customers have positive reviews of the platform.

Here are some of the most common positive feedback:

• Fair prices: Many customers love the low prices at Wayfair. They say that they receive good quality for the price they pay.
• Wide selection of furniture: Wayfair customers appreciate the vast range of items and varieties Wayfair offers. This makes the website a go-to destination for them in any home improvement project.
• Some excellent customer service agents: Although numerous reviews mention that they had a disappointing customer service experience, many positive reviews stated otherwise. A lot of reviews said that Wayfair’s support service was responsive and effectively resolved their problems.

What the Better Business Bureau Reviewers Liked About Wayfair

Like on Trustpilot, Wayfair has a low rating on the Better Business Bureau. Still, many customers also mention positive experiences with the company.

Here are the most common positive opinions:

• User-friendly website: Many customers appreciate how the Wayfair website and app are simple. You can place an order with a few clicks. The platform also offers a convenient order-tracking feature.
• Ongoing discounts: Wayfair customers value the platform’s continuous discounts and sales. They say that this makes the platform’s competitive prices even more affordable.
• Zillions of products for all needs: Wayfair offers millions of items across hundreds of categories and subcategories. This wide selection meets almost all needs and preferences.

Why Are People Worried About Using Wayfair?

Thousands of Wayfair customers have shared multiple negative feedback about the company.

Here’s why Wayfair receives such a massive number of negative reviews online:

Why Are Trustpilot Reviewers Worried About Wayfair

Wayfair scores 1.3 out of 5  on Trustpilot, based on over 3,500 reviews. The following are the most common reasons for this low rating:

Unresolved issues

Many customers reported that the company didn’t handle their problems well. Most of the time, the support team didn’t resolve their problems or took a long time to solve them.

Broken items

A significant number of buyers reported receiving their items broken. Even worse, Wayfair sometimes took considerable time to send replacements for these damaged items.

Platform and inventory bugs

A lot of reviewers have experienced different types of bugs while using the platform. Some say they’ve ordered discounted products only to discover that the website charged them the full price.

Others have stated that after days of placing their order, Wayfair contacted them, explaining that the items they ordered were out of stock.

Why Are Better Business Bureau Reviewers Worried About Wayfair

The overall rating of Wayfair on the Better Business Bureau is only 1.08 out of 5. Here’s why:

• Subpar customer service: The vast majority of the reviewers stated that they’ve had disappointing experiences with customer service. They mentioned that the customer support agents were unhelpful and sometimes provided them with inaccurate information about their orders.
• Delayed delivery time: A lot of customers have complained about their orders being delayed past the expected due date. They also said that sometimes the shipping time kept changing.
• Long return and refund process: Many buyers reported that the return and refund process took a long time. Even worse, they sometimes encountered mistakes in the process that entailed contacting the support service again and wasting more time.

Wayfair Quality and Guarantees

Wayfair currently doesn’t require suppliers to undergo quality inspection or quality control tests to join the platform.

Instead, they rely on customer data, such as feedback, returns rate, and complaints, to determine the products’ quality.

That said, they say that you, as a supplier, should provide high-quality products at competitive prices to continue working with them.

Regarding supplier payments, you can choose to get paid within 60 or 30 days. However, if you select the 30 days payment option, Wayfair will charge you a 2% quick payment fee.

On the buyer’s side, Wayfair offers products from a massive number of suppliers. That way, product quality varies from one supplier to another. Still, the majority of Wayfair furniture is of decent quality.

The company also offers an easy-to-claim return option within 30 days in cases of damaged items or missing parts.

As for the warranty, some Wayfair products come with a warranty, while others don’t contain one. It depends on the piece of furniture you’re purchasing.

That said, the warranty period can range from only 30 days up to one year.

Additionally, some products come with an optional add-on protection plan for an additional cost.

Does Wayfair Offer Customer Service?

Wayfair offers support services for both its customers and suppliers throughout the week.

However, there are mixed opinions regarding Wayfair’s support service quality, especially from the customers’ side. Some buyers praise it, while many others complain about it.

On the seller’s side, there have been no complaints about the support service.

What Customer Service Options Are Available?

As a supplier on Wayfair, the company assigns an onboarding coach to you in your first three months. This is to help you in setting up and growing your business.

After this period, you can still reach out to support service by submitting a ticket through the partners’ support service portal. Alternatively, you can email the support team.

Likewise, customers can contact support service via chat or phone from 8 A.M to midnight on weekdays.

They can also reach out to customer service on weekends. However, the working schedule is slightly shorter then.

Similar Gigs to Research

Many gigs other than Wayfair also raise questions regarding their trustworthiness. Here are a few similar gigs to consider checking:

• Is Cider Legit?: Unsure whether to deal with the Cider fashion platform? This guide will reveal the truth about this fast fashion brand.
• Is Carvana Legit?: You should be picky in selecting a dealership for selling or buying used cars. Should you consider Carvana for this mission? This guide answers your question.
• Is RedBubble Legit?: Thinking of selling your art on Redbubble? This post will help you determine the legitimacy of this e-commerce platform.

Wrapping Up

The answer to “Is Wayfair legit” is clear now! The platform is legitimate, safe, and reliable. However, it has multiple negative aspects that you need to consider.

These downsides include the variance in quality, delayed delivery times, and some customer support issues.

This post can be your reference whenever you need to check the pros and cons of the platform in the future.

If you have any questions or thoughts, don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments. Please share this post with someone interested in selling on Wayfair.