This is a good one. In fact, this Wayfair ‘trick’ has opened my eyes to these big online shops and will change how I shop from now on.

It’s been ages since I’ve come across a trick I’ve been excited about (probably the 10p B&M one), and honestly, once I got digging – I didn’t want to stop!

Before I go on, want to thank my mate Sam for spotting this and telling me to investigate. If you’re a large money site learning about this here and wanting to write about it elsewhere, please credit properly!

What is Wayfair?

When I think of Wayfair, I think of Lorraine Kelly laying around on fancy furniture and that jingle ‘Wayfair has just what I need!’. You know? It’s almost as iconic as 0800 800 …. one.

Wayfair is a massive company that sells every type of home product you can think of. The site is ginormous, selling thousands of thousands of products.

Prices cover a large range, with products being a few quid, to five-figure furniture.

If you have a look on Trustpilot.com it’s got over 46,000 reviews and 4.5 stars out of 5 – BUT SHOULD YOU TRUST WAYFAIR? Oh no.

Here’s the goss

If you see something you like the look of from Wayfair, screenshot the image and then stick in Google Image Search.

What you’ll find that the products sold on Wayfair are often sold elsewhere, but much cheaper.

Make sure you get a clean picture of the image, with no arrows or wording added or Google won’t think it’s the same. It doesn’t have to be the full-size image either – a bit of it will work.

The examples below are in a higher price range, because I wanted to find products that were hundreds of pounds different in price (mainly because it sounds more dramatic!).

A lot of the more expensive things are sold from abroad, or have been imported by smaller shops in the UK and cost HUNDREDS of pounds less than Wayfair – including with delivery to the UK.

And not only that, you get to support a smaller business which is always preferable in my opinion.

BUT – here’s where I think it’s properly cheeky. With the cheaper items on Wayfair, reverse image search them, and you’ll find they come from cheap Chinese sites such as Aliexpress (which I love to be fair) and Alibaba.

See this nice solar lighthouse? £33.99 from Wayfair. IT’s BETWEEN £2.40 and £8 (depending on how much you buy) from Alibaba.

And it’s all over the site too. I spent about an hour properly browsing and I’d say 80% of the products I found were sold cheaper elsewhere.

Now you may be thinking, ‘Lotty, you not heard about capitalism before?’, and yeah sure – I get that Nike shoes probably cost 50p make etc, but it’s a bit of a shocker it’s been done so lazily here – at least change the picture, right?!

Well anyway, it’s good news for us shoppers because:

1. We can see if what we’re buying is tat from China. You know, I love tat from China but don’t want to spend £30 on it.
2. If we can get the same product, elsewhere.

Examples of Wayfair products being sold elsewhere, but cheaper

If you are a bit of a bargain hunter like me, you’re going to get into this in a big way. It’s genuinely really addictive.

See if you can find a better discount than I could and let me know.

Gold Fabric patchwork chesterfield wingback chair

• £379.99 at Wayfair
• £325 at Lovesofas

That’s £54.99 difference.

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Blue chest of drawers

• £899.99 from Wayfair
• £533 (612 euros) from Dadubae Home

That’s a whopping £366.99 difference.

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Fancy floor lamp

• £529.99 at Wayfair
• £379 at LeighLighting

That’s a £150.99 difference.

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Mother of pearl mirror

• £559.99 from Wayfair
• £495 from Decoville

That’s a £64.99 difference.

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What have we learned here?

Sure, if you’re shopping at Wayfair, you’re going to definitely want to reverse image search anything you’re thinking of buying to make sure you can’t get it elsewhere cheaper.

Often the websites aren’t as fancy as the Wayfair one, or they’re sold from an eBay shop – but it is the same product at the end of the day.

In fact, I’m not going to stop at Wayfair. Any store that sells thousands of items in one place, I’m going to image search from now on, whether that’s a furniture shop, Littlewoods or even TKMaxx.

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