Home goods retailer Wayfair.com has joined forces with Quill a B2B office provider, to offer a selection of home and office products on Quill.com, according to a press release.
Brad Johnson, senior director of business development for Wayfair.com said in an interview that the company made the deal so it can be the one-stop home and office shop for Quill’s customers.
Johnson said they launched on Quill with a small number of products, but plans to launch 100,000 products by the end of 2013. Both the Wayfair and Quill teams plan to get to this number as quickly as possible.
Products fulfilled by Wayfair.com range from office furnishings, small appliances, exercise equipment and outdoor furniture, according to a press release.
Sergio Pereira, vice president of merchandising for Quill.com, said its customers in general have become more savvy online shoppers.
“Our customers are expecting one stop shopping for greater convenience. [Customers] would like to consolidate their purchases and have fewer suppliers,” said Pereira. “This type of partnership is being driven by the customer’s expectations that their primary provider of office products will have a much broader assortment than it did in the past.”
Wayfair currently has partnerships with other merchants including, Sears, Best Buy and Tesco, and marketplaces such as Amazon, EBay and Rakuten.
According to Johnson, using Wayfair’s extensive catalog, it is working with Quill to identify the classes of products most appealing to Quill’s customer base.
Johnson said, as expected, sales for Wayfair through July 1 were small. He said both sides are pleased from a customer experience standpoint and are working on expanding the selection. Right now the focus is on integration.
“This is the first time Quill has worked with an outside company. We find from a flexible integration standpoint, the company invested well,” said Johnson. “It has been a pretty seamless experience and bodes for future growth.”
Pereira said while items will have some Wayfair branding, it will primarily be a Quill product assortment.
“The experience of the customer will be pretty fluid, it will pretty much look like everything else,” said Pereira.
Pereira said this partnership has significant benefits and allows the company to serve business on a broader basis that is relevant across many industries.
Quill plans to promote the partnership through email, print and web ads. Promotions of the partnership will be ramped up through the next year, according to Pereira.
Pereira said that while Quill is focused on the Wayfair execution at the moment, they will be considering other possibilities with partnerships that are not covered by this one.
“Our focus right now is the Wayfair partnership and succeeding with it,” said Pereira.
Pereira said Quill.com has been making changes over the last year to make online shopping more convenient to shoppers. Last year the company added free shipping with no minimum cost.
“This is the second step we’re taking for the benefit of our customers,” said Pereira of the partnership with Wayfair.