Wayfair has a quality problem. Its new ‘Verified’ program wants to fix it

For two decades, Wayfair has thrived by offering customers an abundance of trendy, inexpensive furniture—around 30 million options, specifically. But as an e-commerce company, Wayfair’s employees didn’t actually touch or feel any of the pieces on the site.

“Our goal was to find suppliers of furniture and make them easily available online to our customers,” Michael McCorry, director of curation strategy and operations, tells me. “We only learned about the products later, through customer reviews and feedback. If a product got bad reviews, it would sink lower in the rankings.”

For the customer, shopping at Wayfair presented something of a risk. With such an enormous selection, they would very likely find a piece of furniture that perfectly fit their desired aesthetic. But unless it had many reviews, there was no telling whether it was well-made or would fall apart after a few weeks.

Wayfair has heard this criticism loud and clear. Today, it unveils a new program called “Verified” that involves merchants painstakingly examining a selection of furniture on Wayfair’s site. The company has selected a small fraction—50,000 pieces by the end of the year—that will be verified for quality, durability, and value. The brand will highlight “Verified” furniture with a new purple check, and these pieces will surface higher in search results.

This curation process is designed to make the shopping process easier for customers, but it also streamlines operations for the company. Wayfair expects that these verified pieces will become bestsellers. McCorry says that in the soft launch of the verified program, the 10,000 pieces that were verified already made up 15% of Wayfair’s total revenue. When 50,000 pieces are verified, it could make up a much more significant chunk of the company’s earnings.

This new dynamic allows the company to ensure that the most popular products are in-stock and ready to ship quickly. But it could also make life more complicated for suppliers, who are likely to see an instant decrease in sales of non-verified items.

Inexpensive Furniture For Every Taste

Wayfair emerged in the early days of the e-commerce revolution. While Amazon offered a very wide array of product categories, Wayfair wanted to be a destination exclusively for homewares.

Wayfair doesn’t actually manufacture any products; instead, it sources furniture from factories around the world, styling the pieces in attractive ways, so that customers could easily find pieces that matched their aesthetic. (Many other retailers, including Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel, also source products from third-party factories.) Merchants go through each item, categorizing pieces by style—like mid-century modern or traditional—to help make it easier for customer to find what they are looking for. “Our role was to source these products and make it easier to find the pieces that would go perfectly with their style,” says McCorry.

But over time, it became clear that customers were struggling to figure out what pieces were high quality and what pieces were not. “This is also an issue of value,” says Liza Lefkowski, VP, curation, brands, and stores. “Customers want to know that the quality of the items corresponds to the price they’re paying for it. But in some cases, it was hard for them to tell.”

For decades, with the rise of fast fashion and fast furniture, consumers were looking for products that were affordable and trendy. But after bad experiences with poor quality, many customers are now looking for well-made, durable products at fair prices.

Verifying 700 Pieces of Furniture a Week

McCorry says that part of the idea of the Verified program emerged when Wayfair began opening stores last year. For the first time, Wayfair employees were getting to see furniture in person, and recommending pieces to customers. “We began to think we should do this with our online selection as well,” he says.

There was no way that Wayfair would be able to individually verify all 30 million pieces of furniture it sells. So, the company has developed a way to pluck out pieces to verify.

Madeleine Gauthier, merchant manager, says the company’s team of merchants is at the frontline of this process. They’re familiar with the selection of products in their narrow category, such as outdoor furniture sets or bar stools. The goal is to verify several pieces of furniture across categories, styles, and price points. So, for instance, Wayfair will try to verify several brown leather sofas that cost around $1,200 price point, and several modern wooden vanities that cost around $300.

Merchants send products to Wayfair’s Boston headquarters for testing. They choose these pieces based on whether they have good reviews and how popular they are. Then, they spend about half an hour on each item. “We start with the unboxing experience, to make sure everything is packaged well,” says Gauthier. “Then we check that the assembly process is not unreasonably difficult.”

Next, they actually use the furniture, as a customer might. For an outdoor dining set, they will check if the pieces seem heavy enough that they wouldn’t blow away in a storm. They will sit in the chair and see whether it is the right height for eating a meal at the table. They will then compare the product to others they have tested. In the end, they will identify and promote the top products. “We want to have enough variety so that if you’re looking for something very specific, like a metal outdoor bar stool, you will be able to find a verified one,” Gauthier says.

Wayfair creates a little video of each product, with a merchant talking about its selling points. At this pace, the company can review about 700 products a week. Today, at the launch, there are 10,000 products that are verified. But the brand expects to get to a total of 50,000 over time.

Winners and Losers

McCorry believes that many customers will gravitate towards the verified products. “It makes the shopping process so much easier for them, which was the whole point,” he says. “They don’t need to go through all the reviews, because they know we have tested it and recommend it.”

Some suppliers are likely to experience an immediate windfall as a result of this program. Sales of their Wayfair-verified sofas or side tables are likely to spike. But other products are likely to go down in sales. Lefkowski admits that this has caused some concern among vendors. In response, Wayfair is trying to be as fair about the process as possible. “We gave them a lot of warning about this program and we are very transparent about what we are looking for,” she says. “If their product didn’t pass the test, we give them feedback about what went wrong so they can correct it.”

And McCorry says that once Wayfair has verified all 50,000 products, its merchants will keep reassessing what is in the Verified program. If a supplier has an interesting new product that consumers seem to like, Wayfair might test and verify this product, displacing a similar verified product. “Long term, our hope is that this encourages all suppliers to focus on quality and workmanship,” says McCorry.