Buying a $299 Sofa

As a furniture retailer, we at House of Oak & Sofas are always aware of the great price diversity in the marketplace for furniture. Fuelled especially by China's low labor rates, this year has brought new lows: sofas as low as $299. If not misleading, that price point can be very confusing, especially for the first-time furniture buyer. This article will attempt to give some pointers as to what you watch for when buying inexpensive furniture--specifically in buying a sofa. In the future, I will address the low prices in other types of furniture. If the "Pricing" segment of this article gets boring, simply skip down to the "Quality" segment. That may be more helpful.

Pricing:

Anyone who has done much shopping, and that includes most Americans, soon realizes that the price on one item can vary greatly between stores, or maybe within the same store. Bob, a friend in the furniture business, who has since retired. was always convicted in the "triple tag" concept. "First you tag with manufacturer's suggested retail, (which in many cases is about 25% above regular retail), second you tag with your store's regular price, and last of all you top that with a sale price." According to Bob, the customer's would be "falling all over themselves" to buy the piece due to the psychologically perceived savings between the top and bottom tag. This simply gives you the customer an idea of the strategy that is going on in the retailer's mind whether it be in groceries, shoes, jewelry or furniture.

A second pricing strategy is to mark up and then mark down. Although it would seem that most customers would see through this strategy, we still see stores who announce that they will be closed one day so that they can mark everything half-price for the next day. Now, marking some slow-moving furniture to half-price makes sense, but marking the entire store that way is a gimmick. The store is closed for an entire day so the entire staff can re-price items higher, and THEN price them at a sale price. Although half-price strategies are more believable in jewelry and clothing, where initial mark-ups are higher, the old adage "you get what you pay for," is usually the case.

Finally, in the pricing game, some furniture is priced simply to function as a loss leader: that's when, according to investorwords.com, product or service (is) sold at a substantial discount in order to generate additional sales. Chances are the store is not making much, if any profit on that $299 sofa, but it sure does generate "Buzz" and get a lot of people in the store. Often the customer will "buy-up" to the more attractive or more comfortable sofa sitting next to the "bargain of the day."

At House of Oak & Sofas we follow a pretty consistent pricing strategy. Our goal is to make 3% at the end of the year. That means we must sell a lot of merchandise to make it worth while. That means that when we sell a $1,000 sofa, we hope to make a $30 profit. The difference between our product cost and our selling price goes to pay the ever-increasing expenses for wages, insurance, advertising, building rent, health care costs, warehouse costs, delivery and miscellaneous expenses. Each product is put on sale at 10 percent off at least twice a year, excepting Amish-crafted furniture which we keep at one low price all the time. Our 3% profit goal is realized by averaging all the regular-priced items with sale-priced items.

Quality:

As if pricing is not complicated enough to figure out for the consumer, quality is perhaps more difficult. When you realize that you can buy a sofa priced anywhere from $299 to $9,999, you really need to become somewhat of an expert to tell the difference. For this article, however, we will concern ourselves primarily with sofas priced under $2,000. There is a designer category for sofas priced much higher, but there you are talking about the "Rolls Royce" category, where a big part of what you pay for is brand. We will not cover those issues in this article. Once again, you should always keep in mind that "you get what you pay for" and if you want your sofa to "look good" in 5 years, you will have to pay a little more, or simply buy it and "look at it" rather than actually use it.

Fabric:

First of all, is the issue of fabric. It takes anywhere between 15 and 25 yards of fabric to cover an average sofa. If we settle for an average of 20 yards. a $10 per yard difference in fabric can raise the cost of a sofa by $200. And pricing of fabric does not relate directly to quality. Some of the least expensive fabrics are the most durable. Micro-fibers, nylon and olefin, are all fairly inexpensive fabrics, and although derived from petroleum and therefore tied to the price of that commodity, and will serve you well and save you money. As soon as you decide that your fabric is going to make a distinct decorating state in your room, and that color, texture, touch and aesthetic appeal are as important as wearability, then you open yourself up to thousands of fabrics, some priced as high as $40 per yard, and raising the price of the sofa to the level of leather. In summary, the fabric does not have to be expensive to wear well, it might be expensive to feel or look the way you want it.

Foam:

Second, we come to the matter of foam, which is either the first or second most expensive component in a sofa. Simply put, inexpensive foam will sit as well as expensive foam, on the day you buy the sofa, but thereafter, breaks down much more quickly, and will begin to "pancake" and leave the cushion casings hanging limp and loose within the first year. Foam is sold by the pounds per square foot with the more dense foam costing more. A "promotional" (category of furniture built primarily to be sold at low cost) furniture manufacturer can save considerable money by using lower priced foam. Your best protection against poor foam is to buy furniture with a good warranty from an established dealer. Most of those sofas start at about $800 and work their way up to $1,500 or $1,600 depending on what fabric is used. In summary, ask questions about the foam quality, pancaking and warranty. If your salesperson is not relaxed and confident about such matters, it is better to move on.

Frame and Suspension:

Third we address the issue of frame and suspension. Again, we see much diversity. Two factors should be critical in helping you make your buying decision: warranty and comfort. Although most frames are warranted for the life of the sofa, pay attention to the reputation of your dealer. The best way to discern that is to talk to someone who has bought from the dealer and ask how they have handled problems. It is the dealer's responsibility to help the customer with warranty problems. Make sure you are comfortable with your dealer and that they are comfortable with putting you at ease about warranty issues.

Comfort:

As for comfort, you should sit in a dozen sofas before you decide on what you want to buy. Let me warn you, style and color can be very distracting from this process. It is not easy to sit in a sofa that is covered in a fabric whose color and pattern you find displeasing, and to close your eyes and think "this sofa is really comfortable." But that process is exactly what we recommend at House of Oak & Sofas, because we offer so many custom fabrics and we really want to get the sofa made in the fabric you like. A trained sales associate will listen carefully as you begin the "sit and feel" process and help direct you to other sofas that have a similar comfort level for you body type, but you may then want to spend some time alone finding the best "fit." Of course, along with comfort, you must also be concerned about size. If your room is small, buy a sofa that is comfortable, but that will not over-power the room and make it feel over-furnished.

Aesthetics:

Alas, color, touch and overall eye appeal are important in your purchasing decision. You will sit on this sofa for the next 10 years. Make sure you like the way the fabric feels against you skin. Make sure the pattern has a "it's just me" quality about it. You know what kind of patterns you like in your clothes. Your sofa should have some of those same attributes. If you dislike plaid clothes, you probably won't like a plaid sofa. If you like sleek, clean feeling fabrics, then stay away from the chenille's and velvet types and look at silks, linens and Sunbrella branded fabrics.

Choose colors that are stylish, but that you can imagine liking even if they go "out of style." My favorite color is green: from kiwi to sage to forest green: I know that I can work with that color for a long time: especially when I highlight it with my second favorite color, red, which in shades from blood, to crimson, to cardinal will always enliven the green. If you are tired of a current color scheme, talk to a sales associate about how you might change the color scheme of a room and stay in your current budget. Consider an area rug to help make that change. Paint and/or an area rug is often the least expensive way to change the overall feel of a room when buying a new sofa.

This is a lot of information, but hopefully if you absorb half of it and keep it in the back of your mind as you go shopping, you will end up buying furniture that you will be proud of for at least 10 years.

To summarize:

If the price seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Beware of buying any sofa that has any feature that sort of "turns you off." If you sacrifice your personal aesthetic "sense of color" you may end up hating your sofa for 10 years.
Find a reputable dealer. Ask around. "Who sells good sofas?"
Work with a sales associate with whom you find comfortable asking all your questions.
Don't be afraid to to return to the dealer two or three times to make your decision. If the sales associate is not comfortable, even encouraging of that process, then find another sales associate.

Come and see us at House of Oak & Sofas. If you want to browse our website and look at the Flexsteel and Norwalk sites before you come, that's a good place to start, or you can come looking first and then ask your sales associate to help you use those sites. Happy shopping!

Until next time, keep asking questions. Send them to mrfurn@msn.com and I will answer as many as I can in person or in my column next month.