When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn moreI've furnished my home with many pieces from Wayfair over the years, including most of the items in my guest room.Alex Temblador/Business InsiderI've been shopping Wayfair for nearly a decade, acquiring everything from shower doors to bed frames to smaller items like yard tools and bedding. In the past year alone, I've received 26 items from Wayfair. Some of these pieces have become integral to my decor, have provided additional storage, or have helped me get through my day-to-day life.Though not everything I've received from Wayfair has provided the durability, functionality, or style I expected based on the listing. That's not surprising considering that Wayfair operates a massive dropship network of over 20,000 independent suppliers and almost 40 million products. Some suppliers provide great-quality products, but finding the right ones and even the best price can be difficult to navigate.While our editors and testers have covered what to buy and what to skip at Wayfair, I'm diving strictly into the e-commerce side. Based on my own extensive ordering experience, these are the essential online shopping tips you need to find a great product. I'll show you exactly how to use reverse image search, monitor prices, and master filters. Wayfair Sales: See the latest Wayfair Sale of the Day for the most up-to-date promotions The truth about Wayfair Exclusive Brands and white-labelingIn addition to nationally established brands like Bernhardt and Polywood, there are plenty of brands you may not have heard of, like Corrigan Studios and Latitude Run. These are Wayfair's own in-house house brands, or Exclusive Brands, of which Wayfair offers numerous. The majority of these items are not manufactured directly by Wayfair, rather they are white-labeled.White labeling occurs when "a company manufactures a generic, ready-made product or service, and a retailer (the buyer of the white label products), affixes its own brand name and logo prior to selling it to consumers," according to Shikha Jain, lead partner and head of consumer of North America at Simon-Kucher.White-labeling allows an e-commerce platform to bring products to market instantly without incurring manufacturing overhead, Jain explains. The massive catch for consumers? "The same generic product may be priced widely differently by various retailers," Jain notes. It can also be difficult to gauge quality.To help lessen this burden, Wayfair offers Wayfair Verified Badges, given to only 1% of products on the site, and says these products have been hand-vetted by product specialists using a 10-point inspection scale that evaluates assembly, materials, construction, and ease of use. In theory, this can help narrow down a seemingly endless supply of products with some vetted expertise. However, it's not an end-all, be-all solution. In fact, none of the products I've ever bought have had the Wayfair Verified Badge. I didn't do that on purpose — it just happened. With over 40 million products on the site, don't necessarily limit yourselves to Wayfair Verified products or to only certain brands that Wayfair.Understanding sales and dynamic pricing to get the best priceTry running a reverse image search to see if you're getting the best priceWayfair/GoogleOne of the main incentives to shop at Wayfair is its frequent sales and discounts, but it's easy to be lured by a 80% off discount banner. Unlike Amazon, where you can easily track historical pricing through sites like CamelCamelCamel, Wayfair doesn't offer the same pricing transparency and uses volatile algorithms to change prices.The sale prices can still be good, but the discounts are not as deep as they appear. Many of those massive discounts are marketing illusions. "One tactic some retailers use is to inflate the regular price while keeping the discount the same, which means the consumer is paying a higher net price. The only way to tell whether this is true is to monitor and track prices over time to ensure you are getting the best deal," explains Jain.Wayfair also consistently changes product names, which doesn't make it any easier to make sure you're getting the best deal. "The same generic product may be priced widely differently by various retailers. It's up to the consumer to conduct price comparisons," explains Jain.Here are some tips to make sure you're getting the best price:Run a reverse image search: Right-click the product photo and run a Google Lens reverse-image search to unmask the original manufacturer. I tried this with an Inbox Zero desk from Wayfair and discovered it was sold by a company named Whalefall on Walmart for about $15 cheaper. It's no longer available on Walmart, but this shows there's potential to find a cheaper option from a competitor. The same tactic can be applied to find high-end dupes if you're looking at brands like West Elm or Serena & Lily, where you coul
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