How many furnishings and houseware items do you have at home?
A few dozen?
A hundred?
Well, our assortment of Wayfair statistics will reveal to you an astonishing fact—that you own an infinitesimal amount compared to what’s available. The online store offers over 22 million such goods.
Read on to find out more astonishing facts about one of our favorite online stores.
Refurbished Wayfair Facts (Editor’s Choice):
- Wayfair had a record 31 million active customers in 2020.
- That year, Wayfair delivered 61 million orders.
- The company offers over 33 million items from 23,000 suppliers.
- Wayfair is the fifth biggest ad spender in the US, dropping nearly $1.4 billion.
- Wayfair had 16,681 employees in 2021, but it laid off 5% of its workforce in 2022.
- As of Q2 2022, each order is worth $330 on average.
- However, net revenue is down 14.9% year-on-year.
- In the first six months of 2022, Wayfair reported a net loss of $697 million.
Wayfair’s Background
Wayfair started with a simple idea—to make furniture shopping easier for everyone.
Showcasing home furnishings takes up a lot of space, which makes it difficult and costly for retailers.
It’s also suboptimal from the customer’s perspective, as not every available option will be displayed. Online stores solve most of these problems.
1. Niraj Shah and Steve Conine founded the company in 2002.
(Source: Wayfair)
Niraj Shah and Steve Conine founded Wayfair two decades ago, but they didn’t immediately call it Wayfair, though.
It was initially known as CSN Stores (taken from the first letters of their names), and, as the name suggests, it was a collection of stores rather than a singular marketplace. At one point, it comprised over 200 separate sites.
The company finally consolidated its stores under one name, Wayfair, in 2011, though it did keep a few as standalone retail platforms: Joss & Main, AllModern, Birch Lane, and Perigold.
2. Wayfair had 16,681 employees as of 2021.
(Source: Statista)
Wayfair’s business model has proven so successful that in just eight years, the company’s employee headcount has grown sevenfold.
Back in 2014, Wayfair employed only 2,353 people. As of the end of 2021, it employed 16,681 in the US and abroad.
That said, this growth appears to have plateaued since 2019. Since then, the number of employees at Wayfair has only gone up or down by a couple of hundred every year but hasn’t changed significantly—yet.
3. Wayfair implemented cost-efficiency measures in 2022.
(Source: Boston Business Journal)
In August 2022, Wayfair announced that it would be laying off 5% of its global workforce, including several hundred workers based in Boston (the company’s HQ) as well as in Wayfair’s international branches.
As a part of these “cost efficiency” measures, approximately 870 workers in total lost their jobs.
Also, Wayfair has frozen new hiring. This means that it will likely end the year with fewer than 16,000 employees for the first time since 2019.
Fun fact: The company’s international presence may be limited to Canada, the UK, and Germany, but it employs thousands of people in those countries, too.
4. Wayfair offers over 33 million items.
(Source: Wayfair)
There’s an enormous variety of products at Wayfair to choose from, including furnishings, décor, houseware, and other household goods. As of 2022, the platform boasts over 33 million items from 23,000 suppliers.
With frequent sales offering up to 80% off in various categories of items, you can always find something good, affordable, and perfect for your home.
Wayfair Revenue
Wayfair has had two very successful decades since its inception, with 2020 being its best year ever.
Since then, though, things have “normalized”, if not gone a bit downhill. Let’s look at the numbers.
5. Wayfair dropped nearly $1.4 billion on advertising in 2021.
(Source: Wayfair)
When it comes to advertising, Wayfair is one of the biggest spenders in the world, devoting roughly 10% of its net revenue on advertising.
Specifically, the company dropped $1.38 billion on advertising in 2021—a slight decrease (-2.4%) from 2020’s $1.41 billion.
Still, Wayfair is the fifth biggest ad spender in the US retail industry. It ranks below Amazon ($10.4 billion), Walmart ($3.1 billion), Target, and Macy’s, but above Kroger ($984 million), Home Depot ($959 million), and Kohl’s.
6. In mid-2022, Wayfair reported a net loss of $697 million.
(Source: Wayfair)
According to the latest Wayfair statistics, the first half of the year hasn't been the best for the company—it’s running at a net loss of $697 million, as opposed to a net income of $149 million for Q1 and Q2 2021.
Much of this decline is due to lower revenue and higher operating expenses. For instance, the company devoted $12 million to “customer service center impairment and other charges,” as Wayfair is planning to consolidate its customer service centers.
Fun fact: Customer service has evolved quite a bit in recent years. Nowadays, more people (41%) are satisfied with having access to a live chat for support, though good old phone calls boast a higher satisfaction rate (91% vs. 85%).
7. As of Q2 2022, net revenue is down 14.9% YoY.
(Source: Wayfair)
As Wayfair’s annual sale volume has gone down, so too has its revenue.
In Q2 2022, the company recorded a 14.9% decrease in net revenue year-over-year, going down from $3.86 billion to $3.28 billion.
Curiously, Wayfair’s US operations saw a much smaller decline (-9.7%) than its international business, which contracted by 35.7%.
Overall, these figures follow the trend that started in 2021, when Wayfair’s net revenue for the whole year was $13.7 billion—3.1%, down from the record-breaking 2020 ($14.1 billion).
8. Wayfair is worth $3.3 billion.
(Source: Companies Market Cap)
At the time of writing, Wayfair’s market cap is $3.32 billion ($31.85 per share)—the lowest it has been since 2017.
At the peak of the pandemic, the company was once worth over $35 billion, meaning it lost about 90% of its value in just over a year. Overall, Wayfair ranks as the 2767th most valuable company—a far cry from competitors such as Amazon and Walmart.
Fun fact: Amazon is worth more than $1 trillion, making it the 5th most valuable company in the world. Only Alphabet, Microsoft, Saudi Aramco, and Apple currently surpass the ecommerce giant.
Wayfair’s Customers
As you can imagine, after reading the previous stats, Wayfair’s customer base has also dwindled.
The pandemic gave it an unexpected boost that has all but dissipated since.
Regardless, the company still has more customers now than before the pandemic.
9. Wayfair had a record 31 million active customers in 2020.
(Source: Wayfair)
Wayfair statistics show that the company hit a peak in 2020—the year of the pandemic. Similarly to many other online businesses, it saw a boom in customers that ultimately proved short-lived.
Compared to 2019, when Wayfair had 20 million active customers, 2020 brought an over 50% increase to 31 million. Since then, however, the number of people shopping at Wayfair websites has gone down drastically—to 27 million in 2021 and 24 million as of Q2 2022.
Although the pandemic-driven boom has ensured that the company is still better off today than it was pre-COVID, we’ll have to wait and see at what point user numbers normalize.
Fun fact: As of 2022, more than 2.1 billion people in the world shop online. As you can expect, the number of digital shoppers varies from country to country, of course. In the US, for instance, about 80% of the population has purchased something online.
10. Wayfair delivered 61 million orders in 2020.
(Source: Statista)
Online shopping at Wayfair is likely one of the easiest ways to furnish your home, so we aren’t surprised that most users make more than one order.
In 2020, Wayfair delivered 61 million orders to 31 million customers or roughly two orders per customer. This was a huge increase from 2019 when the number of total orders stood at just under 38 million).
That said, since the pandemic has subsided and online shopping has lost some of its luster, Wayfair is now down to 52 million orders.
Fun fact: Back in 2013, Wayfair had a little over three million orders. Talk about growth!
11. The average order value as of Q2 2022 was $330 dollars.
(Source: Wayfair)
Wayfair’s sales in 2021 were a tad slower than they were in 2020, but not all was gloom and doom—while there were fewer orders overall, the average value of each one increased.
Compared to an average order value in 2020 ($232), 2021 saw a 14.2% growth to $265. And things have continued to improve—as of the second quarter of 2022, the average order is now worth $330, which represents a 19% year-over-year increase.
After practically two years of a global pandemic when people had to spend more time at home than usual, it seems they’ve decided to go all out with their furniture.
Wrap Up
What were your favorite Wayfair facts?
Ours is the one that says Wayfair offers almost as many items as it has customers. With the latter figure decreasing over the past two years and the former continually increasing, the two might soon reach parity.
Of course, the number of customers is likely to go up once more before long, probably as soon as the post-pandemic situation normalizes.
If Wayfair statistics are anything to go by, the company will persevere and continue to grow.
Sources
A wayfarer by heart, Jordan fancies journeying into foreign lands with a camera in hand almost as much as he enjoys roving the online world. He spends his time poking at letters and pixels, trying to transmogrify them into something cool.
