COMM 410

SURVEY RESEARCH REPORT

DECEMBER 5 2021

Wayfair
Group 6 Members:

Aline Alcazar, Jacob Francis, Crystal Garcia, Nicole Higdon, Jani Lackey, Anna Melendres,

Kevin Montes, Briana Munoz, Cameryn Tovar, Hanna Yip

Dr. Guoshua Mark Wu

Cal State University, Fullerton
Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 2

Table of Contents

Executive Summary 3

Background 4

Objectives 6

Methodology 7

Findings 8

Appendix A: Questionnaire 13

Appendix B: Graph Results 17

Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 3

Executive Summary

Wayfair is one of the leading furniture brands in the market, and it is continually finding

ways to stay relevant at the site of increasing competition. For instance, in 2019 the brand

opened its first permanent physical storefront after testing the market with a few pop-up stores.

This is a direct response to customer’s preference for shopping in person when it comes to

choosing furniture. Based on the insights we gathered, we were able to create a survey that

confirmed the findings we previously discovered. The survey consisted of 15 questions and the

results both confirmed and strengthened our previous findings.

One of the first insights we discovered from the survey was that Wayfair’s presence on

social media was weak and needed some work. For one of the questions, we asked our

respondents if they follow Wayfair on social media? The majority of the respondents answered

no to that question. Another question we asked them was if they tagged Wayfair on their social

media post in which the majority of the respondents answered no. Because of these respondents,

we have found that Wayfair lacks in promoting themselves more on social media platforms.

Therefore, we need to implement a strategy that motivates customers into having a more

interactive experience with the brand. The fact remains, Wayfair is predominantly an online

store, and with that comes challenges, such as how the customer feels an overwhelming emotion

when shopping on the website because the vast variety of options makes it challenging to find

exactly what you’re looking for.

Another insight that we found from the respondents is the navigation on the website

itself. In one of the questions on the survey, we asked our respondents to move the slider to the

number you think best describes their online shopping experience at Wayfair. The respondent

gets to move the slider to 1 being the least challenging to 5 being the most challenging. The
Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 4

result was a bit pleasing but still work to do. 26% of the respondents slide it to a 3 which is the

highest of that question and 16% slide it to 0. We can include that while shopping at Wayfair is

not too difficult, there are some respondents who do find it a bit difficult to shop for furniture.

Wayfair must therefore fix a few things on their website, perhaps create a better navigation

button where customers can find what they're looking for when they visit the site.

The survey was mainly composed of a public under 30 years old, and one can say they

are avid internet users but then what happens with the other public Wayfair can target which is

over that age group? Therefore, it is essential for Wayfair to become a more accessible store,

since it predominantly sells furniture and its competitors have the upper hand in that front.

Regardless of the age group it is important to expand the brand in order to reach a larger

audience. In our survey when asked, “When shopping for furniture would you rather shop online

or in person?” the majority of the respondents agreed that they preferred in person furniture

shopping, and keep in mind this is coming from people in their mid 20s. From this data we can

conclude that there need to be some changes that accommodate the customer’s needs and wants.

Background

Wayfair is a well known company that sells furniture and is also known as “CSN” stores.

There is also a global brand which means they have multiple locations all over around the world.

They are known to partner with various organizations, and one includes Homes for our troops.

They are known to have the best Partnerships all around the world, and to even have the best

visions for furniture and living comfortably. Wayfair is the biggest destination for home

decorations and a place where people can build their homes all in one website. Wayfair’s name

came from their guests because they gave the purpose of having it their way a reason for the
Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 5

name to come to life. The logo has more purpose in terms of hard work and dedication coming to

life. As the years continue to come many new changes are said to be made within the company.

Examples include expanding even more in places like Canada, Germany and the United

Kingdom. Wayfair is and will continue to be a world-class team with always having a driven

mindset and to create homes for their lovely customers.

Entrepreneurs Steve Conine and Niraj Smah sparked a business plan finishing their last

semester in college and ultimately became the foundation for founding and building several

businesses in the technology sector. Wayfair became the largest ecommerce destination for home

furnishing and decor which started with only a single website and grew to more than 250

standalone sites. In 2011, they moved their ecommerce sites into one mega destination for the

home, which became the company, Wayfair. By the following year, Wayfair had exceeded $600

million in annual revenue. They also became a household name offering millions of products

across a wide array of styles and price points.

Wayfair offers 22 million products across five distinct brands Wayfair.com, AllModern,

Birch Lane, Joss & Main and Perigold. As of March 2021, the company employed

approximately 16,000 people headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Both Connie and Smah

continue to build Wayfair into their biggest endeavor yet, still innovating every day to create the

ultimate shopping experience. The company name of Wayfair was based upon aspiration, vision

or a story selected by a marketing agency hired by both of the founders. The brand includes a

large variety of home goods while having a wider range of prices than in most home goods

stores. Their online shopping makes it easy to get your shopping done, as well as being more

convenient for the customers. All of the items are delivered at your doorsteps providing great

service to all.
Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 6

Objectives:

We devised the following objectives.

● Would regulating the content visible to a potential customer help reduce feelings

of being overwhelmed or over-stimulated by a vast array of products and options

to choose from?

● Would Wayfair be able to maintain a strong engagement with their customers

beyond its online presence if they continued to expand its marketing efforts the

way Amazon presents itself?

● Would expanding Wayfairs International sales increase the companies online

sales and boost their market share to surpass other e-retailers.

● Would creating a program to help older generations navigate their websites

increase sales?

● Would celebrity partnerships make Wayfair’s brand awareness more credible and

positive?

● Would Wayfair’s co-branding partners help Wayfair strengthen their brand for the

benefit of the company?

● Would a strong emphasis in international marketing boost position overseas?

Additionally, could promoting the company in untapped markets aid in expanding

reach?

● Would expanding products to more than just furniture and home goods help them

compete against competitors such as Amazon?

Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 7

● Would Wayfair’s brand image on social media demonstrate how affordable and

personalized their products from their store are?

Methodology:

To find solutions for our objectives, we curated questions and used the software called

Qualtrics to conduct a survey. Thus, allowing us to get data from anonymous respondents that

will help get us closer to what people think about Wayfair. Qualtrics is fully online, meaning that

our survey was conducted through technology. Using Qualtrics is easier and quicker due to how

accessible it is for our anonymous respondents. The survey was quick and easy but effective to

our research in Wayfair regarding our objectives.

The survey opened on November 29th, 2021, and closed on December 6, 2021. The total

number of respondents that completed the survey from this time frame is 234 individuals.

Questionnaire: Everyone in our group made questions for the questionnaire. These

questions were based on the problems we identified in Wayfair and we then created them into

research objectives that helped us navigate what to put in our questionnaire. The questions were

curated to find out the respondents' views of how effective the online shopping experience is,

Wayfair’s market presence, and what people think about their media presence in hopes to

improve their strategies. In Appendix A, there is a list of questions we used in the survey.

Methodology Employed: In order to conduct the survey, we had to use Qualtrics to put

it together and release it to the public. The total number of people who participated was 234

which consisted of a majority of ages of 20-25 . Most of the respondents were CSUF students,

the general public, family, and friends. We posted the surveys on our social media, discord, and

to people, we know.
Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 8

Data Collection: All of the data was collected by using Qualtrics data analysis through

the use of a survey with over 200+ respondents.

Data Processing and Analysis: By utilizing the cross tabs tool in Qualtrics we were able

to make a small chart that analyzes the most important questions in the survey.

Findings

1. Do you follow Wayfair on social media to see their latest collections?

● According to our data collected, 97.49% of our total respondents do not follow

Wayfair on social media while a measly 2.51% of respondents do.

2. Have you promoted Wayfair by tagging them on your social media posts?

● An overwhelming 99.16% of respondents have not promoted Wayfair through

their social media posts. Only 0.84% of respondents claimed to have participated

in doing that.

3. Do you have a MyWay membership?

Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 9

● The data showed that 34.73% of the respondents did not have a MyWay

membership and 65.27% did not even realize that a membership program was

available. None of the 239 respondents claimed to have a MyWay membership.

4. When shopping for furniture would you rather shop online or in person?

● 76.47% of the survey respondents would rather shop for furniture in person in

contrast with the other 23.53% of respondents who prefer online shopping.

5. Move the slider to the number you think best describes the online shopping

experience at Wayfair, (1 being the least challenging).

● The majority of the participants ranked the shopping experience at a 3 (26.49%)

and at a 2 (24.86%). These options were followed by 1 (21.62%), 0 (16.76%), and

4 (4.86%). At the bottom of the percentage chosen was 5 with only 5.41%.

6. If you have visited Wayfair’s app/website, how easy was your experience trying to

find your desired products?

● We found that the Wayfair app and website mostly provided a normal sense of

ease amongst participants. 125 participants or 65.10% of the total pool of

participants described their experience as normal. This was followed by

somewhat easy at 14.58%, very easy at 10.42%, somewhat difficult at 7.81%, and

very difficult at 2.08%.

7. Using the options below, how important are celebrity endorsements to you?

● About half of the participants (50.63%) stated that celebrity endorsements were

not at all important to them. While on the other end of the spectrum, only 0.84%

of people claimed that they felt it was extremely important. The rest of the data
Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 10

showed that 28.87% claimed it was slightly important, 17.57% moderately

important, and 2.09% very important.

8. Do celebrity partnerships with companies make you more attracted or interested in

a brand?

● 50.63% of the total participants showed somewhat interest when celebrities

partnered with brands. In contrast, 44.35% of participants felt that it did not

matter to them at all. This left only 5.02% of people showing high interest.

9. What is most important when it comes to your shopping experience at Wayfair?

● Out of all our participants, 47.03% of them found lower shipping costs to be the

most important, when shopping at Wayfair. On the other hand, 30.93% of the

participants found inventory availability to be the most important. Lastly, 22.03%

felt that the most important would be if they had a faster delivery option.

10. Which of the following locations do you purchase Wayfair products from?

● The United States had the most votes with 97.81% of our participants choosing it

as the location they purchase Wayfair products from. 1.75% shops in the

Germany location, .44% shops at the United Kingdom location, and none of our

participants shop at the location in Canada.

11. Have you heard of Wayfair? If so, do you have access to it and where would you

like its services to be offered?

Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 11

● 61.29% of our participants have heard of wayfair, while 33.55% of them haven’t.

Out of the 61.29%, 39.81% said they had access to the website. A majority of the

participants did not answer where they would like the services to be offered.

12a. What online furniture stores do you purchase from?

● 56.85% of our participants chose Amazon as the website where they get their

furniture. 15.32% chose the other option, 6.05% use Wayfair to shop for their

furniture, 4.84% of our participants shop at Macy’s, and none of them use

Hayneedle. 16.94% of our participants would rather shop for their furniture in

person.

12b. Does the furniture store you selected in question 12a sell products OTHER than

furniture and home goods?

● Most of the furniture stores that our participants use, sell products other than

furniture and home goods, with 82.45% choosing yes. 17.55% chose no as their

answer.

13. On what social media platforms have you seen Wayfair advertised on?

● Most of our participants have seen Wayfair advertised on instagram, with 45.93%

choosing the instagram option. Our participants have also seen advertisements for Wayfair on

Facebook (35.41%), Youtube (16.75%), and Twitter ( 1.91%).

14a. On a scale from 1-4 (4 being the best), how would you rate Wayfair’s brand image

on social media platforms for being affordable?

Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 12

● 4.66% of our participants didn’t feel that Wayfair was doing enough for their brand

image, rating it a 1. 55.44% of our participants rated it a 2. 33.68% of our participants rated it a

3. 6.22% of our participants thought Wayfair’s brand image on social media was a 4.

14b. On a scale from 1-4 (4 being the best), how would you rate Wayfair’s brand image

on social media when it comes to being personalized?

● 18.44% of our participants rated a 1 for Wayfair’s brand image on social media when it

came to being personalized, 47.49% rated a 2, 26.82% rated a 3, and 7.26 rated a 4.

15. What is your current age group?

● 13.62% of our participants were between the ages of 0-19. A majority of our participants

were aged 20-25, with 65.11% of our participants being in that age range. 7.99% were

between the ages of 26-29, and 13.62% were 31 years old and older.

Appendix A

Questionnaire

INTRODUCTION
Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 13

As members of this student research group, we are conducting an online survey based on

your shopping experience with Wayfair. The study will take approximately 5 minutes to

complete. All responses will remain anonymous and will be kept confidential. The data will

only be used for statistical analysis. Your participation is greatly appreciated. Thank you for

your time!

1. Do you follow Wayfair on social media to see their latest collections?

● Yes

● No

2. Have you promoted Wayfair by tagging them on your social media posts?

● Yes

● No

3. Do you have a MyWay membership?

● Yes

● No

● Never heard of this membership

4. When shopping for furniture would you rather shop online or in person?

● Online
● In person

5. Move the slider to the number you think best describes the online shopping experience at
Wayfair, (1 being the least challenging).
Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 14

6. If you have visited Wayfair’s app/website, how easy was your experience trying to find
your desired products?

● Very difficult
● Somewhat difficult
● Normal
● Somewhat easy
● Very easy

7. Using the options below, how important are celebrity endorsements to you?

● Not at all important

● Slightly important
● Moderately important
● Very important
● Extremely important

8. Do celebrity partnerships with companies make you more attracted or interested in a

brand?

● Does not matter

● Somewhat interested
● Very interested
Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 15

9. What is most important to you when it comes to your experience with shopping at
Wayfair?

● Lower shipping cost

● Faster delivery process
● Inventory availability

10. Which of the following locations do you purchase Wayfair products from?

● United States of America

● United Kingdom
● Germany
● Canada

11. Have you heard of Wayfair? If so, do you have access to it and where would you like its
services to be offered?

____________________________________________________

12. A What online furniture stores do you purchase from?

● Wayfair
● Amazon
● Macy’s
● Hayneedle
● Other
● None, I prefer to shop for furniture in person (Skip Question 12. B)

12. B Does the furniture store you selected in question 12 A sell products other than furniture
and home goods?

● Yes
● No

13. On what social media platforms have you seen Wayfair advertised on?

● Facebook
● Instagram
Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 16

● Twitter
● Youtube

14. A On a scale from 1-4 (4 being the best), how would you rate Wayfair’s brand image on
social media platforms for being affordable?

14. B On a scale from 1-4 (4 being the best), how would you rate Wayfair’s brand image on
social media when it comes to being personalized?

15. What is your current age group?

● 0-19
● 20-25
● 26-29
● 31+
We thank you for your time spent taking this survey. Your response has been recorded.

Appendix B
Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 17

Graph Results

1. Do you follow Wayfair on social media to see their latest collections?

2. Have you promoted Wayfair by tagging them on your social media posts?

3. Do you have a MyWay membership?

4. When shopping for furniture would you rather shop online or in person?
Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 18

5. Move the slider to the number you think best describes the online shopping experience at
Wayfair, (1 being the least challenging).

6. If you have visited Wayfair's app/website, how easy was your experience trying to find
your desired products?

7. Using the options below, how important are celebrity endorsements to you?
Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 19

8. Do celebrity partnerships with companies make you more attracted or interested in a

brand?

9. What is most important when it comes to your shopping experience at Wayfair?

Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 20

10. Which of the following locations do you purchase Wayfair products from?

11. Have you heard of Wayfair? If so, do you have access to it and where would you like its

services to be offered?

Have you heard of Wayfair? If so, do you have access to it

and where would you like its services to be offered?

I heard that y’all del kids in the cabinets

No.

I have heard of it but haven’t used it

Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 21

Online

Yes! A store!

Never heard of it

Yes

Yes, Instagram

heard of it, never used it only to browse

No

Yes, I do have access to it

Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 22

12a. What online furniture stores do you purchase from?

12b.Does the furniture store you selected in question 12a sell products OTHER than furniture

and home goods?

Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 23

13.On what social media platforms have you seen Wayfair advertised on?

14a.A On a scale from 1-4 (4 being the best), how would you rate Wayfair’s brand image on

social media platforms for being affordable?

Wayfair Survey Questionnaire Report 24

14b. On a scale from 1-4 ( 4 being the best), how would you rate Wayfair's brand image on

social media when It comes to being personalized?

15. What is your current age group?