Wayfair Opening First Store

NATICK, MA — Calling all interior design lovers — Massachusetts-based Wayfair is opening its first physical store. The online home-decor giant is making the leap into brick-and-mortar retail at the Natick Mall, where the store will open Wednesday. Wayfair, which is headquartered in Boston and employs 14,500 workers, follows Amazon as the latest e-commerce retail giant to experiment with physical stores.

"We are pleased to open our first-ever, full-service retail store, and invite consumers to engage with the Wayfair brand and enjoy our exceptional shopping experience in this exciting new format," said Ed Macri, Wayfair chief product and marketing officer, in a statement.

The Wayfair store is located on the first floor of the Natick Mall. Customers will be able to roam the aisles of the store and take their favorite decor pieces that day, rather than ordering online and waiting. The "Home Bar" will be the focus of the shop, offering customers design advice and the ability to digitally style a room in their home and see it in virtual reality. There will also be an upholstery program to customize furniture with hundreds of colors and fabrics.

The company briefly opened a pop-up store at the Natick Mall in October and also opened four Decor & Inspiration pop-op shops Aug. 1 in these communities:

• Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Illinois
• Streets at Southpoint in Durham, North Carolina
• King of Prussia Mall in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania
• Tysons Corner Center in Tysons, Virginia

The furniture retailer boasts a massive inventory with more than 14 million items in the home furnishings, decor, home improvement and houseware categories. The company generated $8 billion in net revenue for the one-year period ending June 30.

The company found itself under scrutiny in June when hundreds of employees at the Boston headquarters staged a walkout to protest the online retail giant's selling of furniture to contractors that furnish detention facilities for children seeking asylum along the U.S.-Mexico border.