At Wayfair, a $12 billion “go-to destination for all things home,” seamless customer experience, innovation, and collaboration are core business values, and payments are no exception. 

In this interview, Matteo Gamba, Head of Product – Global Payments & Fraud at Wayfair, joins Vassilina Walford, Director at Payments Consulting Network, to discuss the strategic importance of payments in Wayfair’s business operations. They dive into Matteo’s role, key payment challenges, emerging payment trends on his radar, and how to bridge the gap between the strategy and execution through organisational alignment, stakeholder buy-in and securing the right talent and resources. 

Matteo also shares his role with the Merchant Risk Council (MRC), explaining how being part of this community and leveraging collective experience helps him in his day-to-day work as well as the positive impact MRC brings to the overall e-commerce industry.  

Read the full article below.

VW: Please provide a high-level overview of the business 

MG: Founded in Boston nearly 20 years ago, Wayfair has built a strong footprint and brand recognition, first in the US and later expanding internationally to become a household name. 

On Wayfair’s family of websites, apps, and, more recently, physical stores, customers can find a vast selection of furniture and home goods designed to help them create their own personalised and unique living space. 

As of today, Wayfair generates approximately $12 billion in annual revenue, a volume that presents exciting opportunities and challenges, particularly in payments and fraud, the two primary areas of focus for me and my teams. 

 

VW: What does your role entail and what are your objectives? 

MG: For the past few years, I have led the product and engineering teams responsible for Wayfair’s payments experience, payment infrastructure, processing pipeline, and fraud and risk management defences. 

When I joined Wayfair 8 years ago, there were no dedicated teams for payments and fraud; these tasks were managed by other teams (finance, storefront, order processing, etc.) on a part-time basis, without a very clear focus or strategy. Over time, we redefined our approach: we built a comprehensive strategy, formed dedicated teams, hired the right talent, gained executive support, listened to our customers, and refined our solutions to best meet their needs. 

Today, we have strong teams, a clear strategy, and solutions that deliver tangible value to the business by making it easy, safe, and rewarding for our customers to pay. 

 

VW: What are the key payments challenges for the business and how have you sought to address these? 

MG: Once you have a strategy in place, the main challenge is execution. A critical component of that is the allocation of internal resources, which is often the most common hurdle, especially when there is no dedicated payments team. 

Before you can secure those resources, you need to gain support; whether it is from your manager, your team, key stakeholders, executives, or even the board, the key to securing buy-in is understanding how your strategy aligns with their goals, objectives, and even personal preferences. This alignment is crucial, particularly when it comes to securing elusive tech and engineering resources. 

 

VW: What are the strategies/technologies deployed to optimise payments and the customer checkout experience? 

MG: A successful payments strategy can be summarised into two main goals, which can then broken down into sub-strategies and tactics: 

1. Optimise Top-Line Growth: The goal here is to increase revenue and increase the amount of money that you get into your cash register, which can be achieved by driving more traffic to your site, increasing average order value, improving conversion rates, optimising authentication and authorisation rates, and minimising false positive declines. 
2. Minimise Bottom-Line Losses: Once the cash is in the register, the focus shifts to ensuring as much of it as possible makes it into your bank account. This involves improving operations, reducing cancellations and returns, streamlining reconciliation and revenue collection processes, negotiating fees, and minimising fraud and chargeback losses. 

Once you’ve defined your strategy (the “why”), you can explore the possible solutions (the “what”). At this stage, you will consider different payment methods and service providers. With clarity on those, you can focus on implementation details (the “how”) and sequencing (the “when”) to optimise your ROI. 

 

VW: What new innovations or technologies are on your roadmap? 

MG: We’re always going to be focused on enhancing the customer experience and improving business performance. Among the many things in our roadmap, a clear focus for the team will be on personalising the payment experience to better meet the needs of each customer, including further improvements to our financing/BNPL and loyalty offerings. 

At an industry level, I’m closely monitoring several trends: 

• The ongoing evolution and adoption of Tokenisation & Orchestration solutions 
• The emergence of Digital Identity solutions, which will significantly reshape payments and fraud management 
• The rise of Account-to-Account (A2A) payments across various regions 
• The regulation of Crypto and Blockchain technologies, as they gain more mainstream acceptance 

 

VW: What are some of the key criteria you look at when assessing payment service providers? 

MG: When running an enterprise-level RFP to select a payment processing partner, it is crucial to first understand the goals and objectives you want to achieve. Whether you are expanding into a new market, reducing costs, improving conversion rates, or modernising your tech stack, this clarity will guide your comparison of potential partners and their offerings. 

Armed with this understanding, you can then assess the available solutions by evaluating a few key selection criteria: 

1. Resilience, SLAs, Security, & Compliance: These are fundamental, non-negotiable factors. Any partner must meet these standards, or they will not even be considered. 
2. Feature Set: Ensure the partner’s products can meet both your current and future needs. 
3. Approval Rates: Aim for the best possible performance to minimise declines of good customers. But it is important to keep in mind that you will only truly assess this once the integration is live! 
4. Commercial Terms & Pricing: Negotiate to secure the best deal and maximise ROI… this is the best way to make your CFO happy ;) 
5. Technical Proposal & Flexibility: Your engineering and product teams will assess how easily the solution can be integrated, maintained, and judge the overall quality of the tech stack. 
6. References from Industry Contacts: Talk to peers and existing clients to validate assumptions and ensure the partner delivers on promises. 
7. Account Management & Support: Ensure strong support throughout the lifecycle of your contract, from negotiation to ongoing operations and future improvements. 

 

VW: What is your role at the MRC? 

MG: I have been actively involved with the MRC for several years, participating in both online and in-person events and conferences, often as a speaker. Since 2023, I have had the privilege of serving on the European Advisory Board. This role has provided me with a deeper level of engagement, allowing me to collaborate with an exceptional group of professionals and industry experts. Together, we offer strategic guidance to the MRC and help shape its direction for the future. 

 

VW: How does the MRC help you achieve your payments objectives? 

MG: From the rich content on the MRC platform to the regular events, workshops, and access to an incredible network of experts, the MRC has been instrumental in helping both me and my teams stay at the forefront of payments and fraud management. 

Being part of this vibrant community of professionals has been invaluable. The shared knowledge, best practices, and collective experience have not only supported our ongoing efforts but have also contributed to the sustainable growth of the ecommerce industry! 

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Matteo Gamba is speaking at MRC Barcelona, 28-30 April 2025. He will share insights on identifying fraudster personas, deterring bad actors, and enhancing the customer experience. Make sure to join the presentation to learn how to align teams, secure stakeholder buy-in, and build adaptive, innovative fraud prevention strategies. 

For more information on the conference and to register, please click here.  

Payments Consulting Network is a media partner for MRC Barcelona as well as MRC’s flagship events in Las Vegas, Melbourne, and Amsterdam. For further details on MRC’s conferences please visit their website or check out the conference events page on our website.  

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Author: Vassilina Walford, Director, Payments Consulting Network 

As a seasoned former Head of Payments in luxury retail, now turned entrepreneur, Vassilina brings 20+ years of international experience in retail and payment industries. With a deep understanding of the multifaceted nature of payments, merging technology proficiency with financial expertise, customer-centricity, and data analytics, Vassilina helps retail merchants transform, build, and scale their payment capabilities. 

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