Wayfair boosted orders over 300% during Way Day

Dive Brief:

Wayfair's 36-hour flash sale, Way Day, averaged 325% higher revenue than that of the previous 28 days, according to Edison Trends data emailed to Retail Dive.
The data also showed that Wayfair experienced 339% more orders on the self-proclaimed sales holiday and 315% more unique customers. Edison Trends said the data comes from millions of anonymous and aggregated e-receipt transactions over the last year.
While the numbers show the company experienced a bump from the last month, compared to last year's Way Day, the results weren't as stellar. Edison Trends reported that last year Wayfair "produced about a 400% increase in these metrics versus the previous month."

Dive Insight:

Wayfair hosted its second annual sales holiday last week, and while Way Day 2019 didn't produce as great of results as last year's event, it proved beneficial to growing the company's customer base nonetheless.

The trend of retailers creating sales holidays has gained more traction lately, following in the steps of Amazon and Alibaba, and extending beyond just a 24-hour sale (what Wayfair hosted last year has since expanded to a two-day event), is also gaining popularity. Zulily this summer rolled out a week-long sales event dubbed Thrill Week.

Edison Trends found that 37% of Way Day 2019 customers were first-time visitors to Wayfair.com, compared to last year's 47%. The data also shows that 48% of Way Day 2018 customers have not returned to the website since the sales holiday.

Caroline Jansen for Retail Dive; Source: Edison Trends

The data shows Wayfair's per-day revenue was up 11%, its orders and unique customers were up 9% and spend per order was up 5%.

The company this year launched "Wayfair on Air," a video livestream of product reviews included in the sales event, a trend that is gaining more attention lately. While this has been the medium of QVC for years, Amazon announced in February the launch of its own livestreaming shopping service.

The sales event could have an effect on the retailer's first quarter earnings by providing a boost to sales in the period. Those results come out on May 2.