How a Canadian furniture importer grew online from under 5% of sales to more than 70% on Wayfair
A twenty-year-old Canadian designer and importer of furniture came to Looking Glass Group with less than 5% of sales online. Five years later online is more than 70% of the business, Wayfair.com alone is a $10MM+ account and the online catalogue has grown from about 100 SKUs to more than 900.
The situation
The business was two decades old and built on retail. Store traffic was falling and online was a small part of sales with no plan behind it. The question the owners needed answered was whether a marketplace could become a real channel for a furniture importer, or whether it would stay a side project that ate margin and management time.
Furniture is one of the categories where Amazon is often not where the volume is. Large, heavy, style-driven products sell on platforms built for them, and in North America that means Wayfair first. The starting point was to prove that on this company’s own numbers before anyone committed a catalogue to it.
What we did
An account targeting plan
We built the account targeting plan for the business: which platforms fit the products, in what order and what each one would have to deliver to be worth the work. Wayfair was the platform to get right first.
Wayfair as the best-practice model
We managed the Wayfair relationship as the model for every platform that followed. On Wayfair that means the unglamorous work that decides search position and delivery speed: catalogue setup and class mapping, product attribution so items appear in the filters shoppers actually use, imagery, pricing and promotional calendars, sponsored placements and the logistics programs that Wayfair rewards. Most of the growth we find on Wayfair comes from fixing what is already listed before spending on ads, and that is the order we work in.
A category growth plan
With the account performing, we defined the category growth plan: which product families to extend, which SKUs to add and how to keep the assortment moving without eroding margin. That plan is what took the online catalogue from about 100 SKUs to more than 900.
The result
Online went from less than 5% of the business to more than 70%. Five-year growth passed 600%. Wayfair.com alone became a $10MM+ account. The company added four warehouses to keep up with the volume.
Why it worked
Three things, and they are the same three on every marketplace account we run. The prize was sized before the money was spent, so the owners knew what they were building toward. One platform was run properly before the next one was added, which is how a small team learns a marketplace instead of drowning in six of them. The assortment grew on a plan, SKU by SKU, rather than by listing everything and hoping.
This is the work described on our Beyond Amazon services page. If your furniture, lighting or home products sell through traditional retail today and you want Wayfair to carry the same weight, start with a marketplace assessment.
Key facts
- Client: a 20-year-old Canadian designer and importer of furniture (anonymous)
- Category: furniture and home
- Platform: Wayfair, Canada and USA, then the platforms that followed
- Service: Beyond Amazon marketplace management
- Online share of sales: under 5% at the start, more than 70% today
- Five-year growth: more than 600%
- Wayfair.com: a $10MM+ account on its own
- Catalogue: about 100 SKUs to more than 900
- Operations: four warehouses added to keep up