Best Dropshipping Stores Spotlight: Wayfair

There’s been quite a talk lately about dropshipping businesses. Almost every young entrepreneur, influencer, and digital marketer want to build a Shopify dropshipping empire and earn passive income – a six-figure passive income!

Unfortunately, as appealing as it seems, almost 90% dropshippers fail in the first month because their product isn’t making enough money. The reason can be anything – from wrong niche selection, lack of patience, delayed shipping, to inconsistency.

We came across some of the best dropshipping stores (most of them subscribers at Sell The Trend) that excelled greatly and made hundreds of dollars following an effective plan and execution.

Sell The Trend presents, the best dropshipping store bi-weekly “SPOTLIGHT” where we’ll be reviewing winning dropshipping stores that you must follow to make your dropshipping business a success.

This blog series is intended to be an inspiration and guidance for novice dropshippers who are just starting.

What Defines a “Top Dropshipping Store”?

Dropshipping success requires patience. You can’t expect to be successful overnight, nor does success in dropshipping come by chance.

The stores we select in our bi-weekly spotlight all have a unique selling point (USP) that defines them.  The earning comes later! They have something that others don’t – even in the same niche.

A unique selling point can be outstanding product photography, unique font selection, eye-catching landing pages, and untapped products.

The best part is, a successful dropshipping store with a USP doesn’t look like a dropshipping store at all. It’s a vibe!

Before you get started, put your passion into it (maybe your signature design) and you’ll be surprised by the audience’s response to your dropshipping business.  

Some other things that define a top dropshipping store include good SEO and social media following. 

This Week’s Spotlight: Wayfair

Wayfair is one of the biggest e-commerce marketplaces that runs on the dropship model. That means all customer orders are sent to the manufacturer or supplier’s warehouse where they prepare, pack, and then ship the order to the end customer.

Why is it one of the biggest dropshipping stores online? Well, you’d be surprised that it has over 14 million products. You heard that right!

While you and I are looking for that one winning product to sell online, they’re managing 14 million products that are being dropshipped.

How do they do that? Who are their suppliers? How did they start? What are their key strategies? What if I want to sell my products on Wayfair?

Keep following and I’ll try my best to answer each possible question about this top dropshipping store.

Wayfair: A Brief Introduction

Wayfair is an American dropshipping company that was founded in 2002 by Niraj Shah and Steve Conine. It was formerly called CSN Stores.

They have over 14 million products listed that come from 11,000 global suppliers. The headquarter of this e-commerce beast is in Boston, Massachusetts. However, they have offices based throughout the USA, UK, Canada, Germany, and Ireland.

Currently, Wayfair is operating 5 major branded retail websites: Joss & Main, Birch Lane, Perigold, AllModern, and the WayFair main website.

Wayfair’s Niche

Wayfair is your online home store to buy furniture, lighting, cookware, and more. It started as a furniture store, later, more niches were added including kitchen, baby & kids, renovation, outdoor, pet, appliances, rugs, and more.

Wayfair completely reinvented the way people shop online – especially furniture.

If you have ever searched for furniture online, you have most likely come across Wayfair. That explains why it’s a giant home store.

A simple search of “bed” on Wayfair yields over 50,000 results.

You can further filter the results by color, size, material, box spring requirements, and bed type.

Similarly, a simple search of “teacups” gets you 48,000+ results.

People who visit Wayfair to buy furniture, kitchenware, appliances, home décor, or anything else, are likely to buy more than they expected.

In a nutshell, Wayfair is not limited to the furniture niche in 2021. In fact, it has everything you’d need inside your house – be it for kitchen, bathroom, outdoor, or bedroom.

Though they’ve been operational for more than a decade, the recent COVID-19 crisis further bloomed the Wayfair store when people started buying more online.

According to an online survey, more than 20% of people said they bought from Wayfair for the first time in 2020.

That’s a 21% increase in their customer base in COVID-19 crisis. Don’t forget that these numbers are taken just from a single social media platform. 

Moreover, one can always find hundreds of items on sale on Wayfair.

Can You Work on Furniture Niche in 2021?

I do not recommend selecting a furniture niche (as a whole) in 2021. The market is extremely saturated and if you’re a starter, it’s impossible to survive without huge marketing budgets and product fulfillment.

Wayfair started this at the beginning of the dropshipping business model era. They started with a few products and eventually ended up with the 14 million products listed today.

However, there are still some attractive opportunities and you can get some useful product ideas from their store.

For example, these “Sofa Slipcovers” are trending these days and you’ll see dedicated slipcovers Shopify stores.

Similarly, go through different products manually at Wayfair and check how many Shopify stores are selling these products, find Facebook Ads, and check audience response.

A similar product was also picked up by Sell The Trend’s Nexus AI product research machine:

You see, the product cost is $18 and selling price is $64.95. The profit margin here is more than $40.

If we compare the prices with the Wayfair listing, there isn’t much difference.

Need help with your niche research? Find profitable dropshipping niches with Sell The Trend’s AI product research. You can also sign up for 7-Day Free Trial.

Who Are Their Suppliers?

It seems unreal dropshipping over 14 million products on a single store, isn’t it? How does Wayfair do it? Who are their suppliers?

Their inventory is managed by thousands of suppliers across the globe. Their suppliers are general furniture and home décor manufacturers, suppliers, and even resellers. The product owners/manufacturers ship 95% of the orders.

These also include Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress sellers who have signed up for the Wayfair dropship program.

Furniture, lighting, renovation, outdoor, and appliances suppliers/manufacturers can simply sign up on Wayfair as a supplier and list their products.

It is a simple 3-step process:

• Sign up
• Add products
• Sell & ship

With 14 billion in sales, thousands of suppliers are making thousands of dollars just by listing their products to Wayfair’s loyal customer base.

Wayfair is so dominant that suppliers reach out to them now – not the other way around.

But how do starter dropship businesses find reliable suppliers? Starter businesses typically must find and test different suppliers before they find some reliable ones.

I always recommend ordering from different suppliers before you list the product in your store. This way, you can determine the product quality, delivery time, product packaging, and make an informed decision.

Learn more about the 1200+ suppliers on Sell The Trend. Each product you find on Sell The Trend also comes with a list of quality suppliers.

Just click on the supplier option and you’ll be redirected to their listing on AliExpress.

Why are they successful?

Their success lies in the huge inventory, fast shipping, free membership for suppliers, and minimalistic store design.

Huge Inventory

With millions of products, Wayfair covers a vast audience. They have any to everything people need inside a house.

This gives them an edge over other home stores, and they retain most of their current customers. They have now 31+ million customers – and the number is increasing rapidly. This fast-growing and loyal customer base is the key reason for their success.

Free Membership for Suppliers

Wayfair gives an easy way for suppliers and manufacturers to sell online. With the huge customer base and free membership, hundreds of suppliers join Wayfair dropship every month.

Their customers, products, and suppliers are increasing at a rapid pace. 

It is the primary selling source of many furniture manufacturers in the US. 

Store Design

I didn’t have any problem while navigating through the Wayfair home store. It was as if I’m browsing a small e-commerce store. When I searched for “Bed”, it showed me the best options along with prominent filters, number of total results, pricing, and shipping information. That was a good start!

Moreover, the home page is pretty basic yet attractive.

They always have some offer displaying at top of the page. Whether it’s free shipping, 70% off, or maybe an off-season sale, they never fail to bring the news to their customers.

Moreover, they have a separate “Sale” page that brings in enormous sales.

Value Proposition?

The three main value propositions of Wayfair dropship home store include accessibility, customization, and brand. Customers are always satisfied with their purchases and their furniture assembly is top-notch as well.

The main Wayfair websites offer a wide range of options, thousands of suppliers, and product experience.

They also have other websites for a more personalized buying experience depending on the shopping habits, easy browsing, and personal preferences. Their 5 main brands are:

• Wayfair.com: The main home store with a wide range of options.
• Allmodern: Another home store to buy modern house décor and furniture.
• Joss & Main: Focused on home décor and offers discount and sales on various products.
• Birch Lane: Offers classic farmhouse, and traditional home décor, and unique furnishings.
• DwellStudio: An online home décor store focused on fashion-forward home décor.

In a nutshell, Wayfair is now a strong and large home store brand in the U.S.

Specific strategies or practices unique to niche or industry

Wayfair solely operates online. There is no physical outlet. It has its five brands unique to the niche that provide a more personalized experience to customers.

As mobile searches are increasing day by day, they also launched their mobile apps for Wayfair.com in 2014 and Joss & Main in 2012.

Wayfair always stays up to date with the furniture industry and marketing trends and never misses an opportunity to grab more customers.

They utilized the COVID-19 crisis, did aggressive marketing, eye-catching sales, and got a lot of customers – even when the whole world was collapsing.

Cost Structure

The cost structure of Wayfair is like any other dropshipping platform out there. They try to minimize the expenses by keeping everything online, use automated tools to save time and labor costs, and do not handle inventory at all.

They mostly ship directly from supplier to customer.

The primary expenses of Wayfair group are the marketing expenses. Even now, they spend a lot on reaching more new customers and retaining the current customers by email marketing, newsletters, and other means.  

Retaining old customers is one of the key factors of a successful dropshipping store – especially if you have a micro-niche store.

Considering their huge customer base and high traffic, Wayfair also earns revenue from advertisements on their website.

Present Day Update

How much are they worth? What is their estimated annual revenue/profits?

Wayfair is the biggest online home store in the U.S. It has generated 14.8 billion in the past 12 months – ending in June 2021. Its headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts, and other operation offices in North America, Europe, and Germany employ over 16,000 people.

The operating income of Wayfair is $360.3 million, and the total assets of brands are worth $4.570 billion.

Learn more about Wayfair’s quarterly net income of 2020 and 2021 here.

Conclusion

Wayfair is the biggest dropshipping success we’ve ever seen. The enormous product range, personalized brands, and huge customer base – the numbers are just unreal.

Think your store is one of the best? Contact Us and let us have a look at your store. Maybe your dropshipping business can be our next dropshipping spotlight.

Keep following and we will cover more successful dropshipping businesses for you.

And if you want to build your dropshipping empire, Sell The Trend can help! Sign up now and get a 7—day free trial. Our subscriptions also come with a free in-depth dropshipping course.