Handy Tips I Learned About Ordering from Wayfair

This is not a sponsored post. I just wanted to share my own experience hoping it would provide some helpful information and resources if you are thinking about ordering from Wayfair.  Trust that everything in this post represents 100% of my own opinion, views and experience, or I wouldn’t be posting it! =)

So here I am...in the middle of designing my daughter’s playroom, and I was trying to find a fun bright-colored couch to go with the energy level of the room.  My daughter’s playroom was my opportunity to explore all kinds of colors and sort of go crazy with them without having to worry that it might be “too much”. Because nothing is ever too colorful when it comes to kids.  With that, I chose to design the room with a green couch in mind, a very specific green. (Did I mention before that I love green and that green is my favorite color?) I found one that caught my eye - the Agna Sofa in Avocado Green.  There were more than 10 online retailers that carried this couch, but the price was all over the place.  I had never ordered from any of these places before, and I was extremely skeptical about ordering such an important, heavy (not to mention difficult to return) and relatively expensive piece of furniture for the first time from one of these retailers.  

Tip #1: When shopping for furniture or home decor online, remember to consider the entire cost package.

Many people just solely look at the price of the item for comparison, but make sure to factor in the following before you make your decision:

• The price of the item

• Whether this price already includes tax or not

• Any potential discounts or promotions offered at each retailer

• Shipping costs

• If free shipping, is it curbside drop off or inside home drop off?

• Return policy (just in case something doesn’t go as planned)

That’s the first thing I did - narrow down my options by price and weeded out the retailers that were offering the couch at a significantly higher price.  I made sure that I evaluated the entire cost package for getting the couch into my home in one piece. I didn’t want to save $30 for them to drop off my couch on the curb on a potentially rainy day and ruining my couch before it even got into my house!  In the end, it came down to Wayfair and one other retailer for me. I’m not disclosing this other retailer because I want this particular post to focus on my experience with Wayfair, as you can probably guess that Wayfair is the one I ultimately went with.

Tip #2: For those of you who don’t know (I didn’t know), Wayfair, Allmodern, and Joss & Main are affiliate companies. Sometimes their prices could be different, so make sure you check all of these before you place your order!

At the time, the other retailer offered the couch at $959 with free (in-home) shipping and no tax.  Wayfair offered the couch at $973 after tax and a 10% discount applied (a coupon I received for your first purchase with Wayfair) with free (in-home) shipping.  At less than $20 difference between the two retailers, I decided to go with Wayfair, particularly because of their return policy, which means their return policy was worth the extra $$ for me.  

Tip #3: As mentioned in Wayfair’s return policy (old policy), Wayfair offers a full refund in the form of store credit that never expire!

***Update December 2018: I just learned that Wayfair, unfortunately, has changed their return policy recently. For your returns, you are now responsible for the return shipping costs. What a bummer! ***

What do you do when you are not satisfied with the item that you just paid $1,000 (or even more!) for? That is a potentially huge risk and the reason why many people, including myself, are skeptical of ordering large, expensive items online. As with many online retailers that do not have a storefront, you are usually responsible for the shipping costs to return the item. I don't know the exact costs, but I'm pretty sure that the shipping costs to return a gigantic couch would be a good chunk of my refund! Call me old school, but I still like to have the option of returning something I don't like and getting all my money back! There are so many things I want to buy at Wayfair that I was 100% certain that I would have NO problem using my store credit if I had to make a return.

Tip #4: One other thing that sealed the deal for me was that if you choose to return an item at Wayfair for a full refund in store credit (old policy), you can use that credit at any of their affiliate stores, not just Wayfair (i.e. Allmodern, Joss & Main, Birch Lane, Perigold)!

So if you see your living room couch at Allmodern for a cheaper price than Wayfair, but you only have Wayfair store credit, no need to worry!  Because you can use Wayfair store credit at Allmodern! It doesn't say this in the return policy, but I did confirm this via email with Wayfair reps. For your reference, here is Wayfair's Gift Card policy, which I'm guessing works the same way for store credit (see FAQ section).

Now, as you might imagine, the couch that I wanted to order is a BOLD color.  Wayfair offered free fabric swatches for this particular couch for customers to make sure they are satisfied with the color prior to purchasing.

Well, I placed a request for the swatch in green because I wanted to make sure that the color worked in the playroom (and green can be a risky color) before I placed the order for the couch.  OK, it said it would take 7-10 days to arrive. Two weeks later, no swatch shows up. I call Wayfair customer service, and the lady advises me to give it a few more days.  Still nothing. To make the story short, I tried ordering the swatch a couple more times and called Wayfair customer service for help, but still never received the swatch. At this point, it had been several weeks after I placed the first swatch order, the price had increased by almost $200, and I was frustrated. I decided to give Wayfair one more chance, and finally, a lady on the phone was extremely respectful and apologized for all the inconvenience that I’ve experienced. She listened, honored my original price, and connected me with a quote specialist.

Tip #5: I totally did not know this until afterwards, but you can actually request a quote specialist to help you with your order at any time!  The quote specialist will help you with pricing and can actually hold the price for you for a short period of time! (They held my price for me for 2 weeks!)

If I had known that I could request a quote specialist, I would have saved so much time! This quote specialist ordered a swatch for me but… you guessed it … still no swatch.  HOWEVER, this sweet lady (her name is Taylor) was different. She continued to follow up with me week after week to ask if I’ve received the swatch.  Finally, after 3 weeks, she asked me if I wanted to go ahead and order the couch, since it has been far too long, and she will work with me on returning the couch if I was not satisfied.

Taylor was just spectacularly awesome, and she truly represents what exceptional customer service is all about. When you talk to her, you just know you're in good hands and that you'll be taken care of. She has made the rest of my Wayfair experience amazing and super easy for me!

So then, I went ahead and ordered the couch!  It took exactly 2 weeks for my couch to arrive, which was not bad for a couch! A couple of days prior to the delivery date, Wayfair contacted me to schedule a 4-hour delivery window. On the day of delivery, they gave me a 30-minute “heads up” courtesy call that they would be on their way soon!  The Wayfair delivery team was phenomenal and respectful of my house and my furniture. The couch was completely protected and very well wrapped in like 3 or 4 different layers (plastic, styrofoam sheet thing, card board, and plastic again), as you can see below!  Unfortunately, I was not patient enough to take a picture of the wrapping before I excitedly tore into it...

Neither was my kid who proceeded to climb over the wrapping and start rolling around on it.

I absolutely adored this couch and LOVED this green!  On top of that, I got this cute little personal card from the Wayfair team. What a nice touch, as I was not expecting a handwritten note!

In the end, I was very satisfied with my overall experience ordering from Wayfair. Now, I've learned these 5 tips and will have them in my back pocket for the next time I'm going to order home items at Wayfair!  In a later post, I share about my experience with returning an item at Wayfair!

Thank you for reading, and have a wonderful day!

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