We compared ordering furniture on Amazon and Wayfair - here's what we found

Áine Cain

Jan 10, 2019, 02:08 IST

We compared ordering furniture on Amazon and Wayfair - here's what we found

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How do they compare?

Amazon and Wayfair are two popular options when it comes to shopping for furniture online.
But how do these competitors compare?
Amazon and Wayfair boast different strengths, but Wayfair ultimately offers a more straightforward furniture-shopping experience.

These days, people who need furniture and hate shopping have a ton of options.

Plenty of retailers - both digital and store-centric - offer customers the opportunity to make major furniture purchases online. And Amazon and Wayfair are two of the biggest players in the game.

Amazon got its start shipping books, but it now offers all sorts of goods across different categories. Wayfair specializes in home goods and furnishings. Wayfair has been in the furniture business since 2002, but Amazon recently encroached on the home goods retailer's territory by unrolling private-label furniture brands Rivet and Stone & Beam.

Business Insider recently decided to compare the two companies when it comes to shopping for furniture. Here's what we found:

Amazon, famously, functions as an "everything store."

So, unless you've recently been shopping for furniture, that category won't necessarily pop up for you on the site's main page.

On the other hand, furniture takes the top spot on Wayfair's category tabs. To effectively compare both sites, let's use the example of buying a futon.

To narrow things down and locate some futon options without using Amazon's search function, you've got to head to the sidebar on the page's left-hand side.

Go to the "home, garden, and tools" category, then click on the sidebar's "furniture" sub-category.

When you click on Wayfair's furniture tab, you'll arrive on a page with a list of different room-based furnishing options.

The drop-down menu for furniture also offers tons of specific options, organized based on location ...

... including futons and sleepers, specifically.

Wayfair divides its products up into sofa beds, daybeds, and convertible sofas. It also lists similar products and accessories like convertible chairs, sleeper ottomans, futon mattresses, futon covers, and futon frames.

Shoppers can also scroll down this page to find bestsellers in the more general sofa section, including futons.

On Amazon, you'll find yourself in the category of "living room essentials" when you click on "furniture" on the sidebar.

From there, you'd click on "sofas, sectionals, and love seats" and then click on the "futons and sleeper sofas" option.

Amazon's futon page is admittedly lackluster at first glance. The first row of products that pop up — labeled "best-sellers" — feature a couch mattress, a bare futon frame, and a futon grip.

These are futon-related accessories, but actual futons they are not.

The page organizes its futons and futon-related items under categories like "recommended for you," "top rated," "most wished for," "most gifted," "hot new releases," and "under $100."

For a shopper whose sole ambition is to buy a Western-style futon — meaning a thicker mattress resting atop some sort of frame — it's a bit of a mess.

The furniture products are overwhelmed by the amount of accessories.

However, many of Amazon's products do reflect the traditional Japanese-style futon, which are made up of a duvet and a mattress. So this might just signal a more international understanding of the product.

Nonetheless, Wayfair's site definitely feels more navigator-friendly. Like Amazon, Wayfair gives consumers the option to explore based on price and color. But the layout just feels more clear and shopper-friendly, and it includes other factors, like the shopper's life stage.

Both sites also allow shoppers to sort pages based on prices and ratings. Based exclusively on the futon offerings, Amazon appears to have fewer expensive furniture items.

Now let's pick out some futons. We decided to select a piece from Epic Furnishings. On Amazon, a twin-sized version of this futon is listed at $137.99 ...

... while the same, albeit larger, queen-sized piece on Wayfair went for $360.99. One observation — while Wayfair's site is better when it comes to searching for specific product categories, Amazon has far less troublesome pages for individual pieces.

Wayfair's pages feel a bit overactive, with pictures and tabs popping up and expanding wherever you scroll.

Amazon offered free shipping for Prime members and featured two different accident protection plans. The online retailer also promised to get the futon to me within six days, via Prime.

On Wayfair, the queen-sized Epic Furnishings futon came with a $46.15 tax, which bumped the price up to $566.13. The order came with free shipping and a guarantee that I'd have my purchase in five days.

But not all Wayfair options are that expensive. I found a different $158.99 futon with a similar price point to its Amazon counterpart. This item also came with free shipping and an eight-day delivery estimate. It also offered special commercial pricing for businesses.

Overall, the cheaper Wayfair futon was taxed about $4 higher than the Amazon futon. My purchase came to $148.17 on Amazon.

While I could've ordered the cheaper futon for a total of $173.10 on Wayfair ...

... I'd say that, while Amazon has a better overall website, perks for Prime members, and less expensive products, Wayfair offers a more straightforward and organized experience for furniture shoppers. But if you're weighing your options, it's not a bad idea to check out both sites before you decide.

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