Online home furnishings retailer Wayfair reported strong Q3 2016 results that showed continued growth in its e-commerce sales and customer base.

The company operates five separate brand sites — including Wayfair, Joss & Main, and Birch Lane — all of which sell home goods and furnishings. Wayfair's strong digital presence is likely being driven by overall growth in the online furniture market, which could pose potential logistics problems as the company and total market continue to move online.

Here are some of the biggest highlights from Wayfair's favorable Q3 performance:

Retail revenue continues to grow: Retail revenue, consisting solely of direct-to-consumer sales, grew nearly 53% year-over-year (YoY), totaling over $832 million in Q3 2016. This is a measurable deceleration from Q2 when retail revenue grew 72% YoY, however, revenue is growing at healthy clip considering the company is growing from a large base at this point.

Wayfair is attracting new shoppers: Active customers in Wayfair's direct retail business reached 7.4 million people across the US, Canada, and Europe, marking 60% YoY growth.

Mobile share is growing: During Q3, over 40% of all fulfilled Wayfair orders were placed on a mobile device, which is up from 35% during the same quarter last year. This share could jump even further considering the rollout of Wayfair's augmented reality app that lets users visualize its items in their home before buying.

Customers keep returning: Nearly 57% of all Wayfair orders during Q3 2016 came from repeat shoppers. Wayfair can leverage this existing loyalty in the future to drive up purchase frequency among this subset of consumers, potentially using a personalized rewards program tied to its Wayfair credit card.

Overall, the furniture retail category, which includes home goods, is one of the fastest-growing segments in e-commerce at the moment. BI Intelligence estimates that Americans will spend $38 billion buying furniture online in 2016, with digital making up one-fourth of the total market. The success of sites like Wayfair highlight a growing opportunity for other competitors in the market.

However, this also poses a challenge to delivery logistics companies. Handling oversized packages slows down delivery times and decreases potential volume as they take up more space on a truck. To make up for these deficits, both UPS and FedEx increased the handling fees for large items this past May, reports Logistics Management. As the e-commerce furniture market continues to grow, fulfillment companies will have to figure out how to handle these larger items cost-effectively.

To be sure, there are several expenses and complexities involved in delivering over this so-called "last mile," but companies such as UPS will grow e-commerce's customer base (as well as its share of retail dollars) and siphon off one of offline retail's last real competitive advantages if they are successful in this regard.

BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on same-day delivery that takes an exhaustive look at this market and sizes the percentage of people who will purchase goods to be delivered the same day.

The report uncovers the demographics of same-day delivery customers, the markets where these services have the best chance of taking off, and assesses how each of the many new same-day delivery entrants compares to the others. It also looks at the technology that really could make getting a package delivered to your door hours after you order it a common phenomenon.

Here are some of the key points from the report:

USE: BI Intelligence estimates that 2% of shoppers living in cities where same-day delivery is offered have used such services. In dollar terms, we estimate that roughly $100 million worth of merchandise will be delivered via same-day fulfillment this year in 20 US cities.

CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS: Consumer interest in same-day delivery is already fairly high. Four in 10 US shoppers said they would use same-day delivery if they didn't have time to go to the store, and one in four shoppers said they would considering abandoning an online shopping cart if same-day delivery was not an option.

DEMOGRAPHICS: The most common same-day delivery shopper fits a very specific profile — millennial, highly likely to be male, urban-dwelling, and young. The products people want delivered same-day are also fairly niche.

BARRIERS: Despite all the competition in the same-day delivery market, it still won't be easy to get people to pay for these services. 92% of consumers say they are willing to wait four days or longer for their e-commerce packages to arrive.

In full, the report:

Estimates the market for same-day delivery from 2013-2018, including the percentage of people who will use these services and the total sales volume

Looks at the most likely same-day delivery customers and the cities where these individuals are concentrated

Unpacks the kinds of goods people are likeliest to order for same-day delivery

Lays out how the different same-day delivery services stack up against each other in terms of prices, location, and selection

Considers the barriers that could keep same-day delivery from ever becoming a mainstream preference among consumers

Identifies the technology that could make same-day delivery cost-effective and commonplace

(Source: businessinsider.com)