How To Build A Furniture App Like Wayfair – Features, Cost & Development Guide

The global online furniture industry is experiencing significant growth and is projected to surpass $400 billion by 2027, triggered by shifting consumer preferences favoring convenience and a wider selection. This transition is especially noteworthy for India, which supports greater e-commerce. Wayfair has perfectly tapped into this space and changed how consumers shop for home goods with its variety of inventory and novel features.

Do you want to get your slice of this opportunity by creating a furniture app with the same knock-out success as Wayfair? This guide will share the key steps, features, and cost implications necessary to build a robust and intuitive Furniture Ecommerce App Development. Learn how to create the ultimate shopping experience to attract customers and build a community in the online shopping world.

What Is the Wayfair App?

The Wayfair app simply takes the breadth of the popular online/retailer of home goods and furniture into the mobile arena. In 2010, the company launched an app that allowed a full shopping experience from browsing millions of products in categories like furniture, decor, lighting, and more. Features of the Wayfair app include the use of Augmented Reality (AR) Development to visualize items in your house, customer reviews, product details, and easy checkout. While Wayfair does not provide the exact information for app downloads, as one of the largest e-commerce companies in the home goods space, it's safe to assume that Wayfair has millions of customers using their app on both iOS and Android and plenty of customers have adopted it in their home shopping experience.

How Does Wayfair App Generate Revenue?

As one of the largest online retailers of home goods, Wayfair has created a very usable app that not only makes shopping easy but also generates great revenue. Here are five different ways Wayfair app generates revenue:

Product Sales (Main Revenue Source):

The main source of Wayfair's revenue comes from selling furniture, home décor, and appliances through the app. Wayfair earns a margin on every sale by sourcing from third-party vendors, adding a markup, and listing the product on the platform.

Wayfair Professional Program:

Wayfair has developed a membership service for business owners like interior designers, contractors, and hoteliers. Wayfair Professional members have access to exclusive pricing on certain products, bulk buying options, and priority service on touchpoints, leading to B2B Ecommerce revenue.

Advertising Revenue:

Wayfair generates revenue from its vendor relationships by selling sponsored placements in the app. Brands can pay for top visibility on things like appearing at the top of search results and in featured product categories, similar to an ad strategy Amazon uses.

Private Label Brands:

Wayfair owns and sells its own brands: Mercury Row, Greyleigh, AllModern, etc. Exclusive and internal brands generate higher margins vastly and generate customer loyalty since the brands are only accessible through Wayfair and the app. 

Financing and Credit Services:

Through partnerships with other financial institutions, Wayfair provides financing, like Buy Now, Pay Later, or store credit cards, directly within the app. This financing platform acts as a commission-generating and high-order value program. 

Must-have Features to Build an App Like Wayfair

Here is the list of features of on-demand furniture delivery app development you must know before developing. So, let's dive into these amazing AR furniture app features. 

User Registration & Profiles:

Allow users to create personal accounts, customize preferences, track orders, and purchase and manage wishlists. This provides an elevated sense of personalization and 

ease when shopping across multiple devices. 

Advanced Product Search & Filters:

Enable customers to find the right products quickly and efficiently, understood through keywords, categories, price ranges, brands, sizes, colors, etc. A good set of features enables a focused, quick, and effective shopping experience for customers, specific to their preferences. 

Quality Product Listings:

Comprehensive product descriptions, pricing, multiple images, specifications, and reviews/feedback information should all be included on product pages. This can assist the user with making purchase decisions, build rapport and confidence in the platform, and is generally a best-practice format that is a resource. 

AR & 3D Visualizations

Bring in augmented to see furniture in actual room spaces before purchase. 3D renderings can make users feel confident to make decisions about large, expensive items for the home.

Secure Payment Gateway Integration

Support a variety of payment methods, including credit/debit cards, wallets, UPI, and "Buy Now, Pay Later" while utilizing encryption to provide transactions that are both secure and seamless for users.

Order Tracking & Management

Let users track their shipping in real-time (or near real-time) and at least display the estimated delivery time.  Also, allow management of returns or cancellations directly through the app instead of requiring email/calling to customer support.

Push Notifications

Send notifications concerning new arrivals, discounts, restocks, and order tracking. This method can help us maintain user engagement with the app and develop repeat customers. Notifications seem intrusive but can ultimately help increase user engagement and add value to your e-commerce app for furniture stores.

Personalized Recommendations

With the online furniture marketplace app, users can use AI to suggest products based on users' behaviors, past purchases, and browsing history, which can help increase conversions and gain upsells.

Customer Support Integration

Chat systems to respond to user queries and complaints immediately hold the potential to build loyalty with your users and make them feel valued and satisfied.  Design FAQs and ticket systems.

Admin Dashboard & Analytics

Admin capabilities: a backend that allows for control of inventory, orders, and customers and collects analytics data to help manage your business and ensure an e-commerce app for furniture store functionality.

Steps to Make an App like Wayfair

Now, the tie has come when you must know the process of on-demand furniture delivery app development. So follow this step-by-step guide on Wayfair clone app development.

Market Research & Requirement Gathering

The first step to start a furniture selling app is to determine your target audience, identify competitors like Wayfair, and determine your unique selling proposition (USP).  Work with an Ecommerce development company to collect business and technical requirements, assess current market trends, and create a list of features that would align with the app goals. This phase establishes the infrastructure of a prosperous, marketable product that solves real user issues.  

Choosing an Appropriate Development Partner

This is the second stage to build an app like Wayfair in which choosing a credible furniture app development company is vital to your project. Always check an agency's track record with eCommerce, AR integration, and scalable architecture. A well-thought-out UI/UX Design portfolio is also critical to your service provider's belt. Review their development process, including the tech stack, timelines, accompanying costs, and ongoing support after launching.

Wireframing and UI/UX

In this phase, designers prepare wireframes, mockups, and prototypes for stakeholders, demonstrating app structure and overall user journey. These stages of Wayfair clone app development include that navigation needs to be clear, product photos easy to see and tap on, and the shopping cart looks like a shopping cart, but it will also include that the app must be scalable and responsive to mobile devices. A UI/UX Design needs to develop a user experience that allows end-users to browse, filter, and purchase furniture items in a way that is similar to buying furniture in a store.

Backend and Frontend Development

This is the fundamental technical phase of development, and this is where the app functionality is created. Backend-focused developers focus on the backend side of the app, basically everything that happens on a server (for example, a database of products, user management capabilities, payment integrations, etc..), whereas furniture app development companies are focused on the interface of the app. 

Testing & Quality Assurance 

Prior to the launch of the application, the app undergoes several rounds of testing to identify and fix any bugs in the applications, improve the performance of the application, and test any Cross Platform App compatibility. In a furniture shopping app, for example, the quality assurance team will test various features (product filters, adding/removing items to/from the cart, login/login/signup, payment functionality, etc) to ensure the best experience possible for the user.

Deployment & Launch Support

After all the testing has been done and everything is signed off, the top furniture shopping apps like Wayfair and Ikea are launched on all deployable platforms (App Store for Apple and Google Play for Android applications). Ideally, a good Furniture e-commerce app development company will provide post-launch support services (monitoring the application, bug, and code fixes, regular updates like adding new features, and scalable services. These online furniture app development services support all eCommerce apps to ensure security, optimized experiences, and competitive status within the ever-changing mobile eCommerce market. 

When It Comes To Pricing, How Much Does It Cost To Develop A Furniture Shopping App Like Wayfair?

Wayfair-like app development costs can range from $40,000 to $200,000+ (in some cases) depending on the complexity of the build and its respective features and all platform versions included. There seems to be a fairly big gap between the pricing model, but there are various factors or pricing drivers that potentially influence the entire e-commerce app development cost. Below is a list and a brief description of the seven main cost drivers in this item. 

App Features and Functionalities

Typically, basic features such as product browsing and adding/removing items to/from the cart compared to the advanced functionalities, which include AR visualization, AI-based product recommendations, and 3D view of the product, etc., will increase in complexity and, therefore, the increased cost to develop a furniture e-commerce app. 

Platform Selection (iOS, Android, or Both)

Developing for a single platform is more affordable (costing between $20,000–$50,000), while cross-platform or native development for both iOS App Development and Android can increase the cost by two times. UI/UX Design  An effective furniture app requires an attractive and easy-to-use design. Custom animations and responsive interfaces improve user experience, albeit increasing the cost of developing a furniture e-commerce app.  

Backend Development & Architecture  

The overall Wayfair-like app development cost increases on properly securing sensitive user data, inventory, payments, and orders, which require robust backend systems and are crucial. Though more expensive, cloud-based architectures like AWS or Firebase provide leaner performance.  

Third-party Integrations  

Payment gateways, AR interfaces, chat support tools, and analytics logic APIs help businesses but come with significant customization costs along with licensing fees, which depend on the required edits that affect the overall cost of building an app like Wayfair.

Development Team Location 

The Wayfair app development costs influencers on the basis of remote employees from North America or Europe come at a premium compared to India or Eastern Europe, where the hourly rate is much lower.  

Maintenance & Updates  

Beyond launching a product comes post-launch support, including resolving technical issues in furniture shopping app development. It has budgetary feature enhancements, as well as security measures, which are set from anywhere between 15% to 25%. 

Why Choose IMG Global Infotech for a Furniture App like Wayfair Development?

IMG Global Infotech is a reliable manufacturer of mobile and web applications with vast experience in developing eCommerce platforms. With over ten years of experience, our online furniture app development services develop visually appealing, scalable, and feature-rich furniture applications such as Wayfair. We specialize in AI-powered recommendations, secure payment integration, AR/VR integration, etc. We provide a complete custom furniture app builder with UI/UX design to post-launch support catered to your exact requirements. Partner with us now, and we will help you transform your vision for furniture retail into a powerful digital reality. 

Final Words

To build an app like Wayfair, meticulous attention to detail is required, combined with innovative features and the right partner that will aid you bring it all together. There are many different touches that can enhance shopping options, such as user-friendly designs, AR features, or advanced security for payments. If the developer adheres to the proper steps while teaming up with professionals at IMG Global Infotech scalable apps that meet consumer demands can be developed continuously, competing against other industry leaders and adapting modern needs seamlessly.