I hate Ashley

[byhammerandhand]

One of my former customers (closed now) used to sell Ashley.   They told me their Dayton Store had 80% of their pre-delivery repairs were Ashley.  I saw some significant junk here in Cincinnati, too.

Today, I had a protection plan claim to replace a recliner mechanism.  Turned out to be an Ashley duo-recliner.

True to Ashley fashion,

- Rather than sending a mechanism to swap, they send a box of parts and some hardware to assemble it.  Well, I should say, most of the hardware to assemble it.   And the instruction manual (which I only found later) was for a different model.  (I've had this same issue before on pre-delivery swaps)

- Rather than spending 25 cents on Velcro, they stapled the outside back onto the frame.   So I have two rows of staples to remove.  By itself, not that big of a deal.

- Rather than spent $2 on slide and clip fasteners for the back (and making the delivery a whole lot easier) they bolted them on and the lower bolts were nearly impossible to get to and equally impossible to see to line up the new bolts.   I finally got it by lifting the seat iwth one hand, the back with the other and using my other two hands to hold the bolt and wrench.

- The holes in the new mech frame were too large for the bolts that tie it into the base & feet, requiring getting a couple of right sized bolts and nuts to secure it.

- Tack strips on outside back pulling out of OSB frame.

To add irony, this is the second time the mech needed to be replaced in the first five years of ownership (the owner was not obese and was a flight attendant so presumably away from home a fair amount of time.)

And it was only a $400 piece of furniture.


If you ever get asked about a job to work on Ashley, run, run, run.

I believe my former customer used to call it "Trashley"

[SteveA]

One of the biggest furniture manufacturers there are - their new furniture prices are affordable for many folks - and they do the right thing if something is wrong.
Service calls are welcome for me.   

SA

[sofadoc]

Around here, the Ashley dealers have a "Just fix what's broke" attitude. Even if it means fixing it again and again later on. But I don't get too much Ashley stuff anymore. Most of the local furniture dealers have dropped the Ashley line in the last year or 2.

My best friend from high school became an Ashley dealer. He owned 3 superstores in the oil rich towns of west Texas. He sold a lot of custom orders that Ashley couldn't (or wouldn't) deliver on even a year later. He had people screaming for their refunds. At the same time, the oil rigs were slowing production. So a drastic drop in sales combined with having to give back a lot of custom order money led him to commit suicide. He was reluctant to invest in those stores to begin with (knowing how unpredictable the economy in oil drilling towns can be). But the Ashley company made him a lot of empty promises that they would stand by him during lean times. They didn't

[kodydog]

They just opened a Ashley super store in Lake City. Should I drop by and give them a card?

[Darren Henry]

Only if you enjoy trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. After you add enough wood to actually make a usable frame you get to work with some of the nastiest vinyls ever flogged onto the market. Wriggles are almost un-avoidable in that  stuff.

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

I'm not an Ashley fan because of working in the furniture store in KS.  They sell "throw away" furniture as opposed to quality stuff.  I thought the fabrics were just flat out ugly.  I always felt like the existence of Ashley's product was one of the final nails driven in the coffin of the furniture store.  Cheap stuff but people feel like it's worth it to replace every few years if you have small children or are in the military moving from place to place and have movers trashing your stuff during the move.

Virginia

[byhammerandhand]

Today I got to work on some Hancock & Moore.   Ahhhhhh.

[gene]

I can remember doing maybe one project with Ashley furniture. It was two Louis the XVI chairs and I remember them being extremely light in weight.
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Ashley is the largest manufacturer of furniture in the world. There's got to be a lot of repair business out there!?!

Their web site says:
Why do more people buy Ashley than any other single furniture brand?
Because at Ashley Furniture Industries, we know it takes more than just the ability to make good furniture to become the #1 selling brand of home furniture in North America.

I wonder what it is that they know?
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On a high jacked note:

http://i.imgur.com/LwrDftm.gifv

gene

[sofadoc]

Because at Ashley Furniture Industries, we know it takes more than just the ability to make good furniture to become the #1 selling brand of home furniture in North America.

I love the way they carefully worded that statement. They never actually said they make good furniture. Spoken like a true politician. Their ad guy missed his calling. He should run against Trump and Hillary.

It amazes me how Ashley has managed to cultivate a reputation as a top furniture maker. I had a woman in my shop telling me about all the problems with her new sofa. She concluded with "And it's an Ashley..........they're supposed to be the best!!"

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

Before the furniture store went belly up, we sold a fair amount of Ashley.  Cheap and if you have young kids or the military moves you frequently, many people decided that they would buy the cheap stuff and just replace it when issues arose.  However, we had more complaints and service calls with Ashley than with Kinkaid, Thomasville and our other name brand vendors.  I am a firm believer in "you get what you pay for".  Sometimes you get lucky with more economical brands or whatever but more times than not, it will end up biting you in your backside.

Virginia

[byhammerandhand]

They must know people shop on price alone?

We don't need to rely on making good furniture, because we sell cheap.

Their web site says:
Why do more people buy Ashley than any other single furniture brand?
Because at Ashley Furniture Industries, we know it takes more than just the ability to make good furniture to become the #1 selling brand of home furniture in North America.

I wonder what it is that they know?
------------------------
gene

"There is hardly anything in this world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and those people who consider price only, are this man's lawful prey. It is unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much you lose a little money - that is all.   When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.    The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot; it cannot be done.   If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better"

John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

[kodydog]

Today I got to work on some Hancock & Moore.   Ahhhhhh.

I thought they were out of business. They are here anyways.

[SteveA]

I'm not a defender of Ashley furniture -but price is a consideration for many people.  I would guess the call backs and defects are so small at Ashley that it doesn't impact their bottom line. We only see the damage - we cant measure the extent of satisfied customers. 
Sure.. Companies like Stickely - Ethan Allen, Baker, Holly Hunt are very good quality but not everyone can afford. 
Companies like Ashley, Ikea, Bassett have their place.  A partial reason that furniture from these companies doesn't hold up well is due to how folks treat their furnishings.  I see end users knocking the heck out of their furniture causing not just cosmetic but structural damage. If folks took better care of their furniture it would hold up much longer. Furniture takes a beating from users who think the pieces are indestructible - they're not. We don't have to like the manufacturer but I don't care who I repair for as long as they keep calling for service.

SA

[sofadoc]

There seems to be a high percentage of overweight people that gravitate to the lower price-point furniture such as Ashley. Or maybe that's just my perception from my little corner of the world. But every time the delivery guys would bring me an Ashley piece to fix, the first words out of their mouth is "The owner weighs 300 lbs".

It doesn't matter how carefully they treat that furniture. It just simply isn't built to support their weight. I agree that a family all of normal weight could probably get 4-5 years of good service from Ashley furniture provided they don't act like wild baboons.

[byhammerandhand]

I guess my major complaints on this issue were:

1. Don't just send me a box of parts and instructions to assemble a different piece.  Your staff, who is familiar with the product, can assemble much faster and more efficiently on their bench than I can spread out on the consumer's floor, working around their other furniture.

2. Plan for repair.   As a design engineer for 25 years, making things so they can be easily repaired or maintained was a principle.  I also remember a table from another company that I worked on 10 years or so ago.  Rather than a simple leaf, it had a Rube Goldberg of gears, levers, rack and pinions to open the table and swing out some extensions, then lock them in place.  Of course the extensions did not line up right and it was impossible to make any adjustments so it did work.  As I shook my head, I'm thinking, "There's a $5 solution for 50 cent problem."  One of my co-workers told me about a product he'd worked on at his prior employer.  There was a critical piece that he made certain was rock-solid and should it ever fail, be easy to fix.   As it turned out, that was one of the few pieces that never had a problem.


I am always in awe of the people who design recliner mechs.   The same piece that must work for the 95 lb 4'11" woman must also work for the 6'8" 350lb guy.   And everyone in between, regardless of height or weight.