Furniture Items At Wayfair With The Worst Reviews

Wayfair is a well-known online retailer in the home and furniture industry. Customers can shop from the convenience of their computer and find items for both the indoor and outdoor spaces of their home. The furniture section of the website offers several categories for consumers to choose from, including living room furniture, bedroom furniture, office furniture, kitchen and dining furniture, and more. With these categories, people can find pieces to furnish any room in the home.

Consumer Affairs verifies that Wayfair is a legitimate company that offers several features on its website to help simplify the online shopping experience. Items are also available to suit a range of customer budgets, and delivery fees are reasonable or even free with orders of $35 or more. However, despite the company's overall good reputation, there are a few products available through the website that you may want to avoid. These products have earned poor reviews from several past customers, making them a bit of a gamble to purchase.

The Wayfair furniture items below all have a rating of 3.5 or lower, indicating that a significant percentage of customers were not fully satisfied with their purchase. To minimize the impact of a few stray negative reviews, only products with at least 20 reviews were considered. Additional research was also conducted to learn more about the materials used for these products and identify sub-par options that likely contributed to the poorer ratings. We also cross-checked the prices for furniture pieces with other websites offering the same piece to ensure Wayfair was offering the best deal.

Finding products with negative ratings that match these criteria on Wayfair's website was challenging. This isn't to say that there aren't several poorly reviewed products, but the searching and sorting features on the site make it a bit more difficult only to view poorly reviewed items. For example, you can't simply view only 3-star products. The filter settings only allow you to view all products with a 3-star or higher rating. Sifting through the vast selection of products that come up for most categories proved challenging.

As with making a purchase from any website or storefront location, it is always important to read through the reviews for an item you are considering. Dixa shares that 93% of customers consult online reviews before purchasing a product. Possibly even more striking is the statistic that nearly 80% of customers view online reviews from strangers as important in helping make their decision as personal recommendations from friends or family.

Reviews for the Lark Manor Hemmer Reversible Sofa & Chaise available on Wayfair are mixed. According to several customer reviews, the cushions are not comfortable. Many also shared that they flatten when they are sat on. However, other customers shared that they find the couch comfortable. These mixed reviews resulted in a 3.5-star rating with 82 reviews.

This difference in opinions is not uncommon when it comes to sofas. Everyone's personal preferences are different; some individuals prefer firmer sofa cushions, while others like to sink into the couch when they sit down. With so many different preferences for comfort and whether firmer or softer cushions are better, shopping for a sofa online can be a real gamble. This is one of the reasons why the Post Bulletin shares that it is better to shop for furniture in-store than online. When you shop in a store, you can sit on each sofa and assess whether it is soft or firm enough to match your personal definition of "comfortable." This is impossible to do when shopping online, and you'll have to rely on the reviews of others who may not have the same firmness preferences as you.

Wayfair's website shows a 2.4-star rating with 28 reviews for the Latitude Run Ardele 5-Drawer Chest. The dresser is constructed from chipboard, which is far less durable and attractive than solid wood. JustKnotWood points out several other reasons particle board is inferior to solid wood, including its significantly shorter lifespan and laminated edges that can easily become damaged or start peeling. While this furniture piece may seem so much cheaper than a solid wood dresser with a solid design, if you do the math and figure you'll need to buy a new dresser at least every three years, it may not seem the best choice anymore.

Customer complaints about the dresser echoed some of these downsides of chipboard, with several lamenting about the poor quality of the materials. Several other customers also shared that the interior space of each dresser drawer was very small. According to these customers, the drawers weren't nearly as deep as they would appear based on the face of the drawers. This limited the amount of clothing or other items they could store in each drawer.

After performing a reverse image search for this dresser to compare prices from different retailers, an identical image showed up under several other retailer names. On Wayfair, Latitude Run is listed as the manufacturer, but on Amazon, the same item shows up from Unfade Memory. Walmart has two other product listings with the same image, one from vidaXL and one by Maboto. Two of these three options are also less expensive than the product at Wayfair (the third is listed as out of stock).

This Bean Bag Chair by Zipcode Designs sold by Wayfair only has a 3.3-star rating. A common theme across several reviews is that customers were not expecting the chair to be so small and to look so different from the image displayed on the website. Multiple customers also noted that the chair was very stiff and uncomfortable. They said that it was overstuffed, but because of the design, opening it to remove the stuffing was difficult or impossible.

Beyond the poor customer reviews and 3.3-star rating for this bean bag chair, you may want to evaluate whether buying this retro item is a good choice in general. Boss Bean Bags shares a few big downsides to bean bag furniture. These include that the furniture filling will flatten over time, so you'll need to replace it.

Once you decide it is time to replace the filling or dispose of the chair, there are a few considerations you'll need to make to choose the best disposal method. The expanded polystyrene balls (EPS) that fill the chairs aren't eco-friendly. They aren't biodegradable and can contribute to already overflowing landfills. Moreover, if the filling from your chair leaks and is swallowed or inhaled by a young child or pet, it can be dangerous.

The Adean-Joseph Metal 2-Person Seating Group from Latitude Run is another piece on Wayfair that doesn't come with overwhelmingly positive customer reviews. Several customers complained that this seating group was very difficult to assemble. Some said that the assembly instructions included by the manufacturer were not clear, and others complained that the pieces didn't line up properly, further adding to their frustrations. These negative reviews played a huge role in lowering the overall rating for the set to just 3.3 stars.

As Forbes points out, when you're shopping for furniture that requires assembly, it is important to assess the assembly process before you make a purchase. If it looks like it is too complex based on your skills and experience, consider choosing a different product or add the cost of paying someone to assemble the piece(s) for you.

As with the 5-drawer dresser above, a reverse image search for this seating group pulled up the same image listed under two different manufacturer names. Amazon sells a set with an identical image under the brand Outsunny, and Walmart's website lists the same image under the Eccomum brand. Walmart's website says that the Eccomum set is out of stock, but the Outsunny set on Amazon is currently available for about $30 less than the Latitude Run set on Wayfair.

This inflatable corner sectional from Intex has only earned a 2.8-star average on Wayfair's website. One of the main complaints by customers is that they did not realize that the sectional was inflatable. They shared that the picture made it look like real cushions. Many also said that Wayfair did not make it clear that the section is inflatable. As of the date this article was written, "inflatable" is included in the product description, but it is unclear whether it was previously there for customers to read.

In addition to the sub-par 2.8-star review on Wayfair's website, Intex has earned a B rating from the Better Business Bureau. While this is far from the lowest rating the organization offers, it is also not the highest (with B+, A-, A, and A+ being above it). The BBB cites the 742 complaints against Intex over the past three years as the reason for the lower rating.

If you're still set on getting this specific product, consider shopping with Home Depot, Lowe's, or Walmart, as all three stores offer it for at least $25 less than the current price at Wayfair.

After spending a good deal of time assembling the Ingleside 4-Drawer Vertical Filing Cabinet from Symple Stuff, multiple Wayfair customers had very similar complaints: the drawers don't align properly, and they are not the right size to hold standard letter-size hanging folders. Out of 369 reviews, 74 gave this filing cabinet just 1 star, 38 gave it 2 stars, and 51 gave it 3 stars. These negative reviews from such a large percentage of customers lowered the overall rating to just 3.4 stars.

While not all customers experienced these issues, and many were pleased with their purchase, it is difficult to feel confident that you'll be able to get the piece assembled correctly or that it will meet your needs. If you go through all the trouble to assemble this piece only to discover that it doesn't line up correctly or fit the paperwork you purchased it for, you will want to return it.

While Wayfair's return policy allows furniture returns, there are a few catches. You'll have to process the return within 30 days of delivery, disassemble the piece (which may not be easy and will take up even more of your time), and ship it back in the original packaging or purchase a new box large enough to fit it if the original package was damaged or otherwise destroyed. Wayfair customers should not pay return shipping for damaged or defective items. However, if they decide that the filing cabinet was not damaged and that you just didn't follow the assembly corrections properly, then the cost of shipping the return back will be deducted from your refund.

With only a 3.5-star rating, you may decide that the Trule Goddard Faux Fur Inflatable Chair isn't the right piece for your home. A common complaint for this chair was that it kept losing air and needed to be inflated frequently. This is something you should be prepared for when you purchase inflatable furniture. As The Sleep Judge explains, air mattresses deflate overnight due to cooler temperatures that condense the air inside the mattress. Body weight, pressure, and elevation can also impact how much air inflatable mattresses will lose. The same principles apply to inflatable chairs. So, unless you're OK with re-inflating this chair regularly, you may want to look for non-inflatable furniture instead.

A reverse image search returned several images of the same chair (with the same model sitting in it) under the Air Candy brand, available through various retailers. The Air Candy inflatable chair is also significantly cheaper through several of these retailers. You can save $16.70 when you purchase it at Lowe's or $16.69 with Bed Bath & Beyond.