Sofas. Couches. Armchairs. I think I need to sit down.

Patch123

Right, after hours persons, please help me out here. I’ve a problem with couches and I need to talk to someone about it.


1. I don’t understand why they cost so much:

http://www.dfs.ie/angelic/3-seater-sofa-angelic-101200048p--1

(I don't mean to single out dfs in particular - it seems an issue wherever you go)

This couch costs €549.00 - that’s better than half price.

If I wanted to buy it with the regulation two armchairs, the cost is €1,447 in a better than half price sale.

That’s right- the full price for the above is €3,074.00 – for a three-seater couch and two armchairs!!

WHY????????

I don’t understand what is added to a few bits of wood, cushioning and cloth to make the above look like value at around €1,500 never mind €3,000.


2. Why in God’s name would I wait 28 days for delivery?

– and from what I can tell, this is an impressively fast turnaround for this type of product. 2 – 3 days might be reasonable, but a month?? And if the answer is they’re built to order, then, why are they built to order? What is it about them that necessitates this? FFS its a couch, I don’t need it in a month – I want it now! (or maybe by the end of the week)

Arggh!!! Help me out here with this first world problem - why is the price and availability of couches and armchairs so is utterly disproportionate to what is being bought??? and possibly!!!! as well

Hoop66

If you buy a sofa from DFS you deserve everything you get.

mikom

Patch123 wrote: »

Arggh!!! Help me out here with this first world problem - why is the price and availability of couches and armchairs so is utterly disproportionate to what is being bought???

It's nothing new OP.
Been going on since the Ottoman empire.

razorblunt

Why don't you sit stretch out on the Chaise Lounge over there and tell me whats really troubling you?

LDN_Irish

I went to a place called Betel in Shankill. It's a charity of sorts that houses the people who work there and people donate furniture to them fo sell to the public to fund the place. I got 2 sofas and 2 chairs for 100 euro. Thought nothing of it except that it was a great deal, they're really comfy. Then someone who knows about that kind of ****e was in my house and complimented us on the Victoria Ashley "suite." Poshies be giving away all kinds of shtuff man.

eamonnq

http://www.adverts.ie/sofas-suites/2-seater-3-seater-leather-suite/8006894

Loads on adverts as well !!

Patch123

LDN_Irish wrote: »

I went to a place called Betel in Shankill. It's a charity of sorts that houses the people who work there and people donate furniture to them fo sell to the public to fund the place. I got 2 sofas and 2 chairs for 100 euro. Thought nothing of it except that it was a great deal, they're really comfy. Then someone who knows about that kind of ****e was in my house and complimented us on the Victoria Ashley "suite." Poshies be giving away all kinds of shtuff man.

Will be checking this out - thanks!

LDN_Irish

Sorry, Laura Ashley! I make that mistake every time. Yeah check it out, it's good. If you're travelling from the Dublin end it's past the village down a little dirt track. After a housing estate called "Crinken Glen" but before the playground beside the cemetery.

CelticRambler

Patch123 wrote: »

That’s right- the full price for the above is €3,074.00 – for a three-seater couch and two armchairs!!

WHY????????

Because if they price it at 3k for a month, they can then legally claim to be selling it at "less than half price" for as long as the 'sale' period lasts.
(Which in the case of DFS & similar is about 50 years )

seamus

Sofas from DFS are built to order. Hence they're expensive because they're effectively custom made, and the 28 day wait because it takes time to make couches.

Couches are bulky items, and individual styles of couch don't sell by the thousands. So if you like a particular style, the manufacturer may only have 20 of them ready for immediate delivery to 100+ stockists. Outside of that you have to wait for them to do another run of it.

If you want a mass-produced couch that's available quickly and looks the exact same as every one else's, then IKEA do couches and they have them in stock to take away today.

But if you want something relatively unique from the likes of DFS, then you'll have to wait for it because it would be really dumb of them to keep hundreds of sofas in stock.

kneemos

LDN_Irish wrote: »

I went to a place called Betel in Shankill. It's a charity of sorts that houses the people who work there and people donate furniture to them fo sell to the public to fund the place. I got 2 sofas and 2 chairs for 100 euro. Thought nothing of it except that it was a great deal, they're really comfy. Then someone who knows about that kind of ****e was in my house and complimented us on the Victoria Ashley "suite." Poshies be giving away all kinds of shtuff man.

Bet there's s a rat in it.

whiskeyman

Get all your sofa needs at the Sofa King!
His prices are Sofa King low!

jobbridge4life

whiskeyman wrote: »

Get all your sofa needs at the Sofa King!
His prices are Sofa King low!

Was in the process of googling that.

LDN_Irish

kneemos wrote: »

Bet there's s a rat in it.

I don't think they do kitchens.

The Diabolical Monocle

Not so much a first world problem as an Irish problem, were more like a kind of 1.5-est world.

Like we have WiFi available on trains just like the first world.
But it never works and so is unavailable just like the second world.
That kind of thing.

Random items are available like in the first world.
... But they have to be ordered from abroad so aren't really available without a long wait, like in the second world.

whiskeyman

jobbridge4life wrote: »

Was in the process of googling that.

It does exist!
http://www.sofaking.org.uk/

They got in trouble before:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9110816/Sofa-King-advert-banned-for-swearing-slogan.html

frozenfrozen

for 3 grand you could get a 10 year old car that cost 80,000 new and sit in that

Patch123

seamus wrote: »

Sofas from DFS are built to order. Hence they're expensive because they're effectively custom made, and the 28 day wait because it takes time to make couches.

Couches are bulky items, and individual styles of couch don't sell by the thousands. So if you like a particular style, the manufacturer may only have 20 of them ready for immediate delivery to 100+ stockists. Outside of that you have to wait for them to do another run of it.

If you want a mass-produced couch that's available quickly and looks the exact same as every one else's, then IKEA do couches and they have them in stock to take away today.

But if you want something relatively unique from the likes of DFS, then you'll have to wait for it because it would be really dumb of them to keep hundreds of sofas in stock.

Sounds plausable, but the variety of sofas from one manufacturers would be nothing on the variety of, for example, cars and options available from car manufacturers. A popular car could be in stock at one dealer, or another, or be available within a few days. Obviously, that varies from manufactuerer to manufacturer and it'd be easy to show examples where this is not the case, but surely with something as comparatevely straight forward as a sofa they can predict what will be popular based on previous experience? Also "custom made" and "dfs" (or other mainstream brands such as Next) seems a marketing ploy to me, now that I think about it - these are mass produced items, surely, even if they're marketed otherwise, and built to order.

Fair point on Ikea, but they start to get expensive very quickly after you've viewed the first couple at rock bottom prices... and you generally make them yourself. And if I can do this then... I hope it wouldn't take me 28 days or more!

I think you're right about the bulkiness and cost of storage. There must be a lot of cost in that, part of the working around of which must be to market sofas as bespoke products...

Patch123

CelticRambler wrote: »

Because if they price it at 3k for a month, they can then legally claim to be selling it at "less than half price" for as long as the 'sale' period lasts.
(Which in the case of DFS & similar is about 50 years )

Sure, but the point is also that at even €1,500 it seems ridiculously expensive (to me at least)

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

Would never buy a sofa second hand - people could have been doing dispicable things to each other on it. I never feel clean sitting on other peoples couches either. Yuck

Irishcrx

Had this issue last year when looking for a corner sofa, everything was way out of my price range. Went to bargaintown and bought a savage sofa for 450 or something. It's gramd , fits perfect and very comfortable..

CelticRambler

Patch123 wrote: »

Sure, but the point is also that at even €1,500 it seems ridiculously expensive (to me at least)

Depends what you're looking for. There's a lot of making in a proper sofa - much more than just knocking a few bits of timber together. And the two armchairs will take as much making as the sofa.

Personally, I wouldn't pay that much, but then the last sofa we bought was an antique Dutch thing with two armchairs that needed to be done up. We spent a few hundred pounds (sterling) on fabric and foam, managed to get the sofa done eventually and the armchairs are still waiting ... If my missus knew back then that she'd be waiting nearly twenty years, I think she'd have opted for whatever DFS/28 day mass production thing was on offer.