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Buy a Sofa Online? Wayfair Is Counting on It

nytimes.com

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Re: Buy a Sofa Online? Wayfair Is Counting on It

#21

Post by Impossible »

jseliger wrote: post #2

I bought a sofa online and it is, frustratingly, one inch too short. I find the Campaign Living concept: https://www.campaignliving.com/products/the-sofa?variant=416... to be an interesting one, however.

I think AR will find a useful niche here, IKEA already has an ARKit app and I think it will become standard for any large furniture or home improvement store. One problem with AR is that is won't solve the comfort problem. You don't need to get a "feel" for a bookshelf or a cabinet, but couches, beds and chairs vary a lot in terms of comfort level and you can't really know if something will be comfortable unless you sit or lay on it.

Re: Buy a Sofa Online? Wayfair Is Counting on It

#22

Post by shostack »

I would LOVE to buy furniture online, but the kickers are that quality is so hit or miss (usually miss), and there are expensive penalties in the form of return shipping fees. So I usually avoid it because I'm not ok paying $50-$100+ just to find out the photography was misleading so the colors are all wrong, and the built quality is exceptionally cheap.

I don't mind buying online as long as there are free in-store returns, but that tends to limit me to things like Target, Bed Bath, and a couple others. Some, like West Elm are really sneaky here. A lot of their items are just in a warehouse and are "web only." If it isn't a local warehouse, they don't do free in-store returns, so you again get hit with the ridiculous fee.

I hope to god Amazon does something with free in-store returns with all the Whole Foods real estate they purchased. If you could drop something off (and not worry about packaging it up for return shipping with FedEx), have them handle the return and be done with it, that would save me a lot of headaches AND make me spend a lot more for large online furniture purchases.

In the meantime, I've started experimenting with Modsy, which is great because they have 3d renderings of all the products from various stores, so at least I know the dimensions will be right, and the color should hopefully be a bit more on point. It also lets me visualize it in my space with lots of other stuff which is half the problem. Seriously, the renderings have to be seen to be believed.

Re: Buy a Sofa Online? Wayfair Is Counting on It

#23

Post by alistproducer2 »

Who are these people buying sofas, mattresses, pillows etc online? Bedframes, end tables, storage? Sure. Amazon knows what's up and realizes it has to have some form of brick-and-mortar to sell goods that [normal] humans will never be comfortable buying sight unseen.

Re: Buy a Sofa Online? Wayfair Is Counting on It

#24

Post by j2bax »

elchief wrote: post #7

I bought a bed from Wayfair. It was inexpensive and is fine. Except FedEx made me help carry it up to my apartment, because it was too heavy for the driver. I'm a large healthy male, but I can't imagine my mother doing that.

Yeah, they really shouldn't deliver anything their driver can't get at least to the door. I doubt if their insurance policy covers injuries that might happen to a customer helping move a package from the truck to the dwelling.

Re: Buy a Sofa Online? Wayfair Is Counting on It

#25

Post by eli »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #23

Who are these people buying sofas, mattresses, pillows etc online? Bedframes, end tables, storage? Sure. Amazon knows what's up and realizes it has to have some form of brick-and-mortar to sell goods that [normal] humans will never be comfortable buying sight unseen.

Who would ever buy a book online without being able to leaf through its pages?

Re: Buy a Sofa Online? Wayfair Is Counting on It

#26

Post by Varcht »

bluedino wrote: post #20

If you're looking for a $249 couch, it's the way to go. Around here, at least the low-end furniture stores like Art Van stock a ton of low-end Chinese-built furniture. Everything is particleboard and laminate, it scratches and peels and is basically junk, but they want to charge full price for it. At least when you buy a cheap table from Amazon it's priced accordingly. I can see their industry turning upside very qui…

Not just brick and mortars, recently I was looking at a couch on OverStock.com at ~ $1,100 , they have good prices right? I shopped around, found the same couch from a local company online (LA area) for $399 shipped. Transaction went smoothly quality was good.

Re: Buy a Sofa Online? Wayfair Is Counting on It

#27

Post by KGIII »

eli wrote: post #25
alistproducer2 wrote: post #23

Who are these people buying sofas, mattresses, pillows etc online? Bedframes, end tables, storage? Sure. Amazon knows what's up and realizes it has to have some form of brick-and-mortar to sell goods that [normal] humans will never be comfortable buying sight unseen.

Who would ever buy a book online without being able to leaf through its pages?

The two are very different. With a book, you have a reasonably known quantity and it's much easier to ship it back. I'm half convinced people keep IKEA furniture because they can't figure out how to get it back in the box.

Re: Buy a Sofa Online? Wayfair Is Counting on It

#28

Post by ashark »

nsxwolf wrote: post #17
ashark wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not far off from how much you pay for any tough sofa that has even a hope of surviving... ah, large friends or relatives. The steel frames on these make them seem like they'd possibly last for a useful amount of time under those circumstances. Cheap furniture goes to hell fast if anyone over ~250lb is sitting on it regularly. Or sometimes for no discernible reason at all. Our experience has been that unless you're bu…

We bought a couch that seemed pretty good and wasn't cheap. It was really comfortable for about a week, then the whole structure just started to sag. The kids like to stand on the arm rests and jump off. We very quickly learned that the entire structure of each arm rest was just a cardboard box, and they both promptly crushed, and now we have deformed, squishy arm rests.

Yeah, when I went looking for advice on couches and chairs that'll hold up to serious (ab)use, everyone in the know recommended a couple of modern heavy-duty manufacturers or finding something from the mid 80s or earlier and refurbing, both due to survivorship bias and because even cheap furniture from that time was very "overbuilt" (or just "built" if you have normal standards and aren't a cost-shaving manufacturer) compared to modern stuff and legitimately is much stronger. There aren't really other options AFAIK, and we have both some heavy friends and three young kids so better to spend low 4-figures on a couch once than high-3-figures and have to replace it every year or two.

If those steel frame Campaign Living couches actually hold up, they're a good deal at ~$1200. That ugly-ass bulky $800 Ashley Furniture couch with all the faux engraved wood and crap from the furniture store stands a real chance of breaking in short order under very ordinary and careful use, let alone anything extreme. They're garbage. One of several cases in which I think our standard of living gains the last couple decades are kind of fake, disguising lots of things actually getting much crappier as they get less expensive. Though some others, to be sure, have improved—cars, notably, and computers for the most part.

Re: Buy a Sofa Online? Wayfair Is Counting on It

#29

Post by eli »

elchief wrote: post #7

I bought a bed from Wayfair. It was inexpensive and is fine. Except FedEx made me help carry it up to my apartment, because it was too heavy for the driver. I'm a large healthy male, but I can't imagine my mother doing that.

I don't think I've ever gotten a package over 50lbs that didn't look like it was drop kicked out the back of the truck. Definitely a problem.

Re: Buy a Sofa Online? Wayfair Is Counting on It

#30

Post by tekstar »

nsxwolf wrote: post #15

I've been burned by online furniture too many times. There's just no way to get a sense of something's quality online. You need to be able to touch it. Price is not an indicator. My grandfather bought a couch and coffee table from Ethan Allen in the 1960s. They seemed to have been carved from a single block of wood and weighed a ton. Now everything they sell feels like it is made of cardboard, but it costs thousands…

so.. you're saying shipping weight is an indicator?
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