Wayfair, the United States' largest online retailer of homewares and home furnishings, has chalked up £20m of sales in its first year of UK trading from wayfair.co.uk.
In the US, wayfair.com grew out of CSN Stores, which ran 200-plus home-related shopping websites. After securing $165m of venture capital funding last June, the company brought them together into the single wayfair.com site, which offers over 5,000 brands and over 5m items - the country's largest selection of homeware products.

The funding has been allocated not only to the rebranding but is also being used to fuel global expansion initiatives in Germany, Australia and the UK - including, last November, the launch of wayfair.co.uk.

Achieving £20m of gross sales since then, the website offers over 500,000 homewares product offerings and more than 1,600 UK-focused brands, and attracts some 900,000 visits a month.

"Our strategic decision to refresh our shopping experience for customers a year ago is paying off," commented Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah. "We're seeing unprecedented levels of growth in both the UK and across our global sites which is exciting."

He added that Wayfair's ultimate aim was to become the number one brand in the UK for home items.

In September this year, Wayfair announced a partnership to sell its selection of home items -from furniture and lighting to home accessories and decorations - on Tesco Direct. The company says it is on target to offer over 60,000 homeware products on Tesco Direct by the end of the year.