Although home goods merchandiser Wayfair Inc. has long been an online staple, the company has long expected to have a national footprint of physical stores, says a company executive.
The brick-and-mortar plan kicked off in 2024 with the opening of a store in the Chicago suburbs, followed by stores in Atlanta and Columbus, and by openings this year in Denver, Westchester County, New York, Fort Lauderdale, and Cincinnati.
Last week, the Boston-based retailer announced plans to lease and open a 135,000-square-foot Princeton store in 2027 at Nassau Park Pavilion, off Route 1, in a space formerly occupied by an At Home store.
“Stores have always been a part of the plan,” explained Liza Lefkowski, Wayfair’s vice president of merchandising and stores.
Purchases for the home are “highly considered,” and customers want to see and touch products, Lefkowski told Jersey Digs in an interview.
“They want to sit on the couch. They want to turn on the lamp,” she said. “Having a store to go to is very comforting in a way.”
Lefkowski said Wayfair has found that about half of its store visitors are online customers and half are new to Wayfair.
While the merchandising executive said Wayfair plans many more stores, she would not disclose the goal or future locations.
Because Wayfair has sold furniture and home goods online since 2002, the company has a proven order-and-fulfillment infrastructure that retail stores can use, she said. A fulfillment center in Cranbury, Middlesex County, will serve the Princeton store.
Some of the products purchased in the stores will be delivered, but some will also be available for customers to pack into their vehicles and drive home.
A typical store may have 20,000 items on display while the Wayfair website has millions, she said.
Wayfair bills itself as one of the world’s largest home retailers, with $12.5 billion in revenue for calendar-year 2025, according to its website. Wayfair stock, which has been public since 2014, trades on the New York Stock Exchange.
The company has more than 21 million customers, about 12,000 employees worldwide, and offers more than 40 million products, according to the website.
A customer base that includes New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York is expected for the Princeton store, Lefkowski said.
The Chicago-area store, in the affluent North Shore suburb of Wilmette, has a large customer base from around the area but also attracts customers from areas like Milwaukee, about an hour’s drive away, she said.
The displays will include furniture, décor, housewares, and appliances. The company has a “Wayfair Verified” list of products that have been “hand vetted for quality” by staff members.
Stores also offer free design services for customer projects.
In-store employees are trained to use the Wayfair website, so if, for example, a couch is not quite what is desired, the associate can work with the customer to find a more suitable couch online.
Lefkowski said Wayfair is experimenting with the size of its stores. The Princeton store’s 135,000 square feet would put it in the middle of Wayfair stores. The Chicago and Atlanta stores are 150,000 square feet, while the Columbus store is 70,000 square feet.
When new stores open for the first time, lines form around the building, Lefkowski said, as online customers are “excited to see what we are like in real life.”
