Wayfair Looks to Capture Millennial Shoppers With Tech Upgrades
Wayfair continues to innovate, and its new deployments have reached a feverish pace as the retailer prepared for the hectic holiday shopping season, especially focused on the retailer's growing millennial customer base.
“There is a massive wave of Millennials who are just beginning to enter this age range and who are clearly more predisposed to buying online and on mobile,” said Niraj Shah, co-founder, chief executive officer and co-chairman on a recent earnings call with analysts. “Building affinity with Millennials early by being part of their big day, is a huge opportunity for us over the next several years. The registry, we are also introduced to all of our registry couples wedding guests as a place to shop for their homes.”
On the website shoppers can see the new holiday style shops, allowing customers to shop just in time for the holiday season, In addition, Wayfair’s new mobile holiday roll out includes more use of video animation for the holiday merchandising.
Over time, Wayfair will expand its library of 3D models. In addition to using them to create imagery, there are many other exciting future uses.
Wayfair already developed use on a Tango-enabled smartphone, which leverages its 3D models, so customers can see a virtual rendering of the product in their home while looking at the screen.
“As you can see from these updates, we’re making great progress on building the international business, growing our logistics capabilities, and enhancing our merchandising in key areas,” said Shah.
One of the key investments that Wayfair is doing to enhance customer experience and satisfaction, is enhancing group gifting. Today, many couples already own the most basic items for their household that registries have to offer, but have yet to invest in larger ticket items.
Wayfair’s group gifting allows the couples to feel more comfortable with registering for more expensive items, such as furniture. In addition, the gift givers are able to contribute whatever amount they feel comfortable enough with as a gift.
“Our registry couples have the ability to seamlessly track progress of their group guests due to Wayfair app, desktop, or mobile web experience, and they receive an e-mail notification once a group gift has been completed,” said Steve Conine, co-founder and co-chairman of Wayfair. “If a group gift is not completed, the couple has the ability to apply the credit to another item or complete the gift themselves.”
The registry will appeal more to Millennials who are more comfortable and accustomed to shopping online on their mobile devices. The Wayfair team is coming up and experimenting with new features for the online registry experience to constantly improve the site.
Not only has Wayfair added new technology to their website, but also expanded on the growth of its private label, as well as their new TV show, The Way Home. Wayfair has more than 40 private label brands on their site, encompassing a variety of different styles and price points.
One of the biggest challenges in the retail industry is helping the customer find what they are looking for. Many times the customers themselves don’t know what they are looking for, until they see that one special item.
“Our private label brand strategy is one initiative to help customers find the products they want,” said Shah. “When a customer finds a product in a style and price point she likes, she can use the private label brand and the inspiring visual imagery on our site to explore other products of a similar design and price point.”
The key to success is the relationship with the customers and the workers ability to use the information and fate to fit what the customer is shopping for.
With the television show, not only are specific items or products discussed, but every item can be searched and purchased from Wayfair. The show has great hosts with engaging content with many tips that can make anyone’s home specific to their needs and wants and unique. The show can be found on A&E Networks on the Lifetime cable channel.