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Buy a Sofa Online? Wayfair Is Counting on It

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61–70 of 90 posts

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

#61
I purchased a $350 dresser from Overstock a few weeks ago. It arrived with ~10 pieces in ruins or had large visual defects. After giving Overstock a call, they sent out a box of replacement parts; however, they sent it to the wrong address. After another call, we finally got the parts. Of course, one of the replacement parts is also defective...

That's the last time I purchase furniture online.

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

#62
post #38

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.

I bought a mattress and a divan online. There's no point looking at a mattress in person; poking and lying down on it doesn't tell you what it's like to sleep on, so you have to go on reviews anyway. A divan is just a box for the mattress to go on. I wanted some particular mechanical properties, which i could check by sending emails. Staff in a shop wouldn't have had a clue.

Where did you get your divan?

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

#63
post #61

I purchased a $350 dresser from Overstock a few weeks ago. It arrived with ~10 pieces in ruins or had large visual defects. After giving Overstock a call, they sent out a box of replacement parts; however, they sent it to the wrong address. After another call, we finally got the parts. Of course, one of the replacement parts is also defective... That's the last time I purchase furniture online.

Same experience with Overstock when I bought a table. Three months and several frustrations later, I got the table and they offered me a 10% discount on my next furniture order. Needless to say, I'll never shop there again.

However, when my wife bought a chair on Wayfair, we didn't have any issues. I'd definitely do it again. It all depends on who you buy from.

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

#64

Wayfair (and their various demographically-targeted brands, which include Joss and Main, All Modern, Birch Lane and Dwell Studio) is such a horrible mix of crap and quality. I believe they really have to overcome this to become successful. One confusing and annoying problem with retailers like Wayfair, and the many other outlets (Overstock, Barcelona Designs and many others), is that most of their inventory is white-…

True about Slumberland, Ashley, and other brick and mortar furniture stores too.

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

#65

Wayfair (and their various demographically-targeted brands, which include Joss and Main, All Modern, Birch Lane and Dwell Studio) is such a horrible mix of crap and quality. I believe they really have to overcome this to become successful. One confusing and annoying problem with retailers like Wayfair, and the many other outlets (Overstock, Barcelona Designs and many others), is that most of their inventory is white-…

Isn’t that model the same in normal furniture shops? When I visited the bigger ones (XXXL Lutz chain in Germany) they always had lots of furniture under their in-house brands, which I guess is relabeled other stuff. More funky then the names is the pricing, because it’s always reduced. You will never see anything for full price, it will always be labeled with something like 30-50% off. Which however just reflects rea…

I'm not familiar with XXXL Lutz, but it sounds like it's a bit like Wayfair, Overstock, Target, etc.? Home24.de is another white-labeling brand in Germany. Much of Home24's stuff can also be found on Wayfair and elsewhere.

Most retail furniture stores in the US (Blu Dot, Room and Board, West Elm, Herman Miller, Vitra, Knoll, Steelcase, etc.) either design their own furniture in-house or have name-brand designers (e.g. Eames, Jasper Morrison, etc.) they collaborate with. (Sometimes the manufacturer also produces their own "generic" white-labeled versions; for example, the factory that makes Knoll sofas apparently also makes identical/near-identical no-name sofas that are sold under different brand names at much, much lower prices, and if you have some inside information you can find out where to get these.)

Then there are high-end retailers like DWR, YLiving, Lumens, etc. that are more like Amazon in that they mostly don't rely on white-labeling.

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

#66

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.

Bought a mattress online and loved it.

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

#67
post #51

I think there's room for more companies like Home Reserve ( https://homereserve.com ) which ships you a couch or chair in a few boxes you can carry up to a fourth-floor walkup and assemble yourself. If you get tired of the fabric you chose, or it gets damaged, you can order replacements. The covers zip off and zip on. Beyond the testimonials on their site (which all seem to be glowing, unsurprisingly) I have no idea…

Interestingly specialized vendor. Made to order, in USA. Upholstered furniture only. Frame looks to be oriented strandboard: https://homereserve.com/features

I've been using one of their products for a few months now. It was easy enough to assemble, and is reasonably comfortable for the price. It's nice to be able to cheaply and easily design the layout which works for my house.

I'm pretty rough on things, and one of the strand board back pieces has broken twice. They've mailed me replacements pretty quickly, but I do wish it were a stronger material.

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

#68

Wayfair (and their various demographically-targeted brands, which include Joss and Main, All Modern, Birch Lane and Dwell Studio) is such a horrible mix of crap and quality. I believe they really have to overcome this to become successful. One confusing and annoying problem with retailers like Wayfair, and the many other outlets (Overstock, Barcelona Designs and many others), is that most of their inventory is white-…

Isn’t that model the same in normal furniture shops? When I visited the bigger ones (XXXL Lutz chain in Germany) they always had lots of furniture under their in-house brands, which I guess is relabeled other stuff. More funky then the names is the pricing, because it’s always reduced. You will never see anything for full price, it will always be labeled with something like 30-50% off. Which however just reflects rea…

But with the physical store you can walk into the showroom and get a feel for whether a couch is a cheap because it’s a piece of garbage or if it’s a good deal on a piece of solid furniture.

Not with 100 percent certainly, but a lot better than some staged photos on a website.

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

#69
Writing this as my wife and I are on the way to Ikea for the second time this week to choose a couch ...

You really need to see the couch in person before buying it. It’s really hard to judge quality otherwise. You need to feel the fabric of the sofa, sit and lay down on it to feel the cushions, and see the color in person. Our first trip to Ikea was meticulously researched, but when we saw the options we had chosen online in person we completely changed our minds.

We did find a couch we loved on Wayfair but there were few photos and the description of the item was incorrect. The item was a chaise sectional listed as reversible (the chaise could be switched between the left and right sides) but the item listed two separate prices for left vs. right. When I messaged Wayfair about the issue through their ‘Questions’ option on the item they responded quickly only to say that the item description was incorrect and it was not reversible. However, the item’s description currently remains incorrect and my question was not made public like the others. This, combined with the fact that no official dimensions are included in the item description makes me think Wayfair is a dressed up Alibaba for furniture, and not a serious online option like Article, which at least has a lot of good quality photos per item.

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

#70

We recently moved and my wife attempted to purchase 5 different items from Wayfair: we ended up returning 4 of them. The problem was color: the photography online was typically very different from the final product. We kept thinking there was a simple fix: send sample veneers to a customer to let them see what the actual product looks like. They could rent them out like lots of other furniture places do with fabric.…

At least their customer support are good about it. My wife ordered a few pieces of furniture, and every one that arrived had some kind of physical defect. We called, they shipped another one, we called, they shipped another one, etc. All had poor quality, but at some point, we were able to assemble a good item by picking and choosing the best parts from each defective unit. We donated the scratched ones to charity.
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