Nearly Committed Murder

[Mojo]

Dennis, Ed, Keith, Gene, Doyle and the rest of you furniture guys.
Where the hell were you all yesterday when I went furniture shopping ?

First let me say as I get older I have much less tolerance for BS and lies. I wanted to so bad slap a couple sales people yesterday. I found that many of them are either 1.) Completely misinformed 2.) The worlds greatest liars. 3.) Both.

I could not believe the line of crap they had. If it wasn't for my own knowledge and all the reading I have done here from you guys I would have bought a pile of junk. Now I see how people end up with furniture that lasts 3 years. I didn't buy the greatest furniture yesterday but I did buy what I feel was the best I could afford and the pickings is very slim in quality furniture.

We needed a new love seat and chair and all new end tables. The end tables I was OK with since I have done alot of woodworking and know joinery, cabinetry and building techniques. The furniture was harder. It is very hard to " see " what is underneath the leather. I was able to unzip a cushion to stick my hand inside to feel the thickness of the leather and feel the back side. All I could do was stay with hardwood frames, high density foam and how the overall weight and construction of the style we selected felt. Thankfully they had a mock up of the furniture we were buying so we could see the frame, springs, foam wrap, etc.

This was our first trip furniture shopping in 16 years and I hope it is the last time I have to endure a bunch of idiots like I did yesterday. It is a horrible way to spend an otherwise nice Saturday and our savings account took a big hit.

Chris

[sofadoc]

I wanted to so bad slap a couple sales people yesterday. I found that many of them are either 1.) Completely misinformed 2.) The worlds greatest liars. 3.) Both.

In the old days, a true professional salesman was someone who could "sell an ice box to an Eskimo". Most of today's salesmen are either non-commissioned, or very low commission. So most of them don't really have a natural talent for selling.

That's why I believe that they are simply completely misinformed. They aren't savvy enough to be great liars. They've been taught a line of crap, and they believe it themselves.   

It IS infuriating how smugly confident they seem when spouting their sales pitch.

[gene]

In the old days, a true professional salesman was someone who could "sell an ice box to an Eskimo".

In the old days, a really, really good true professional salesman was someone who could sell an ice box to an Eskimo and the Eskimo would then thank the salesman for giving them the privileged of buying the ice box.  :)

I love the "100% Leather Sofas". Yes, it's 100% leather on the front, arms, and cushions. The side and back panels are vinyl. LOL

It is a rare and pleasant experience to run into a truly professional and competent salesperson. I find it a rare event, and I always mention the person to others. Most people have the attitude "Hey, why would I care? I just work here."

They aren't savvy enough to be great liars.

LOL. That's a great line. I wonder how many times sleeze bag lawyers said that in defense of their own clients.

gene

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

I worked for a furniture store for 3 years (Office Manager).  I hit the sales floor when floor traffic warranted it.  The only product any of us were really knowledgeable about was bedding and that was because the sales rep for Restonic (brand we carried) would hold classes EVERY time they introduced a new mattress line.  He would bring in mock-ups of the new bedding, stat sheets for us to get comfortable with, etc.

On everything else, we had some info provided by the manufacturer and that was about it.  Occasionally, the sales rep would come in and give a 5 min recap of a new line but that was the occasion rather than the rule.  We sold high end brands (Thomasville and the like) but I know that just because you spend big $$$'s that doesn't equal high quality.  For sure, the cheapest brand I am aware of is Ashley.  When customers came in and told me they wanted something that would last just a few years (until the kids were older) I always steered them to our Ashley section.  Otherwise, I never ventured in the Ashley area.  It was cheap cr*p and I knew it.

Sounds like you got reasonably good quality furniture and I think that today that is the best that you can hope for.

Virginia

[sofadoc]

I posted recently about accompanying some friends while they shopped for new living room furniture. I was careful NOT to shoot down everything they looked at. I didn't want the whole afternoon to be an exercise in futility.

I pointed out to a salesman that the nap was upside down on one cushion of a sofa. He said smugly "We'll, all you have to do is turn it over".

I said "True, but since it is T-cushion, you'll have to swap it with the T-cushion on the other end. Then IT will be upside down".

The sofa had two LH T-cushions. I never could make the salesman understand. And since I wasn't there to buy anything anyway, I sensed that he was just becoming annoyed with me.

[SteveA]

Chris
Why were you replacing furniture - didn't you buy right the last time - just kidding !
Truth is that unless you're shopping for antiques or hand made craftsman furniture from solid stock and true joinery - don't waste your time and money on new furniture.  Even if it's a premier company and their top of the line unit - it's not worth the price they are asking. Buy antiques and have them restored - at least you won't be throwing them away in 15 years.
SA

[Mojo]

Virginia:

I have to ask this question and since your no longer working for this furniture company I am sure you can give us all a very honest answer.

What is the true markup on furniture ? Lets say a true all leather Vorino or Nattuci couch ?

I have heard so many rumors that the markup is something like 400 - 500 %.
Is the markup bigger on the cheap stuff ?

Gene:

I stayed pretty much silent with a couple sales people and let them go on. That was one of the things they spouted off about " all leather ". After I pointed out that the sides and back were vinyl I then asked them " where is the true all leather furniture located at ? " they all of a sudden started getting more honest. The last salesmen I dealt with was a lying SOB. he is the one I nearly smacked. Started telling me he was a veteran ( as if I am going to buy from him because of this fact ), he went on and on about this and that and then proceeded to lie his ass off about the junk furniture he had that was so high quality.

Dennis:

We went to one store and after the sales lady found out I knew more about furniture then the vast majority of her customers she said " You need to visit this store down the road from us as we do not have what your looking for here. Most of our stuff is cheap where this other store sells high end furniture ". I about fainted right then and there. Honesty ? Really ? Inside a furniture store ? Wow.

She was right. Turns out this store had exactly what we wanted and we bought our chair and love seat there. I couldn't believe the prices on some of that stuff. Outrageously priced but extremely high quality. One was made in Norway and another in Germany. Steel frames and extra thick leather. I thought one of the couches had a wooden frame but it was actually steel. No idea how they built that one. That one was made in Norway. I didn't like the styles of the European ones though as they were very contemporary/industrial.

It was amazing the difference though in the quality of furniture between the different stores. The prices were different as well........:)

Chris

[byhammerandhand]

I worked for a lot of independent furniture stores.   Most of the sales people were "designers" that did not understand much about quality or construction but were more concerned about colors and style.   At one store their favorite adjective was "fun."

Someone told me once to lift up the edge of an upholstered piece and heavier was (generally) better.

Being on the inside of a lot of pieces, softwoods, wood flawed with knots, punk, and wild grain, plywood, OSB, and staples are the norm these days.   Even some of the $10K+ sofas were put together with staples and roofing nails.

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

Virginia:

I have to ask this question and since your no longer working for this furniture company I am sure you can give us all a very honest answer.

What is the true markup on furniture ? Lets say a true all leather Vorino or Nattuci couch ?

I have heard so many rumors that the markup is something like 400 - 500 %.
Is the markup bigger on the cheap stuff ?

The worst mark-up is on bedding.  We would sometimes get 600-750% on bedding.  Our owner just LOVED bedding.  Ugh!  Dale (owner) was very stubborn and wanted 300-350% on everything.  We had crap upstairs that had been there for 10 years or more just because he wasn't getting the price that he wanted.

I bought every single piece of furniture I could think of when I worked there because I knew that I never wanted to pay retail again.  The pay there was lousy but the employee discount was fabulous -- cost+freight*10%.

A word of warning to all.  Beware of anything titled "Remerchandizing Sale", "Going Out Of Business" and possibly even "Anniversary Sale"  These sales are typically done with a special sales group that specialize in high pressure tactics.  We had a couple of the remerchandising sales to put $$$ quick in the bank.  These people came in, took all of normal price tags off.  Their baseline price was cost (freight included) x 3.  They would put a huge red slash through that price, take 50-100 bucks off for their "sale" price.  Sometimes people would negotiate and get a little cheaper price but Dale was still making a killing and people thought they were getting a great deal.  They were actually getting screwed big-time.  These sales are heavily advertised in all medias.  They build up the suspense by putting butcher block paper on all the store windows.  Everyone wants in to see what the big secret is.  Once you walk in the door, a sales person grabs you and the rest, as they say, is history.  If you ever see these sales, wait until the last few days to go in.  They typically last 3 weeks or more.  The last few days they are slashing prices to clear things out and you are actually getting a deal.  Before that, not so much.

I lost my innocence with retail in general when I worked for the furniture store.  I'm sure other retail is as bad -- there just isn't the mark-up to be made there.  I did work for Jo-Ann's here when I needed cash for my remodeling for Sew & Sew.  Big corporations suck just as bad in their own rite but man did that furniture store teach me a lot!

Virginia

[sofadoc]

Virginia:

Many, many times I have gone into one of those "Going out of business" sales. It takes me about a nanosecond to realize that the prices are actually higher than they were before they went on sale.

We had a nice furniture store here for many years. But towards the end, the owner got strapped for cash, and started using those "special sales groups". He would have huge sales 2 or 3 times a year to get an infusion of money.

But the group gets most of the profits. And it gets to the point that customers will ONLY shop during those big sales. So the rest of the year......nothing.

Then the owner is even MORE strapped for cash. So he has to have another big sale. It almost becomes like a drug addiction. The more he has big sales, the more he needs them just to stay afloat.

[Mojo]

Thanks Virginia. I often wondered what the markup was. I am going to assume the large furniture chains have an even bigger markup due to their volume buying power.

The silly little games that some of these sales people play drives me insane. I feel insulted when they say " well let me speak to my manager and see if we can do better on the price " or when they flat out lie about the furniture your looking at.

Thankfully I wont have to repeat this purchase again for many years.

Steve: Funny you mention that. We did buy right on our couch. We really screwed up though on the chairs. They were junk and ended up in a land fill. I wished now I would have bought the matching loveseat and chair to our couch. I wouldn't have had to go out shopping. That was very stupid on my part. :)

Chris

[byhammerandhand]

There's a really cute car dealer ad running locally now that has a puppet reciting all the things that car salespeople (are trained to) say, like,   "What would it take to get you into this car today?"    "Let me talk to the sales manager,"  and "I know that's more than you want to spend, but..."

I also happened to watch the movie Fargo last week and had to smile at the car negotiation, "How 'bout if I knock $100 off that sealer?"  this was after he went to another office and didn't talk about the car at all.

The last few cars I've bought I've used Costco or internet and it was pretty much, "Here's the invoice price, here's our markup, so this is your price."   Of course, I know that "invoice" is not what they pay because of hold-backs, etc.   I've been in a few car dealer's homes and they are not lacking for money.   There was also a program on car dealerships on NPR a few months ago.   It seems the best time to buy is the last couple of days of the month, when they're trying to reach quotas or a sales level that gets them a better incentive with the factory.

The silly little games that some of these sales people play drives me insane. I feel insulted when they say " well let me speak to my manager and see if we can do better on the price " or when they flat out lie about the furniture your looking at.


Chris

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

I also happened to watch the movie Fargo last week and had to smile at the car negotiation, "How 'bout if I knock $100 off that sealer?"  this was after he went to another office and didn't talk about the car at all.

That is one of My hubby's and my all-time top 5 movies.  "Ya, you betcha then" or "he fled the interrogation".  Gotta love the Fargo'isms. 

The other bad thing with the sales groups that come in and do the high price, quick sales to get an influx of cash is that after the sale is over, your normal customers have flat out bought EVERYTHING they need and more.  So now people just don't come into your store.  No sales means that you are hitting that cash reserve you built up.  And our store manager screwed the goose completely.  We advertised as a "Remerchandising sale" and he reordered the same crap that we hadn't been able to sell before.  We had customers come in, look around and ask us where the "new merchandise" was.  So they felt swindled by the owner because we hadn't brought in any new stuff.  That compounded our problems.  Then Ne Furniture Mart opened about 35 miles away from us and it was stick a fork in us, we're cooked.  They had the money to do an advertising blitz, plus buy cartons to get the price break and soon we had days where we had only one or two customers in the store all day.

Virginia 

[sofadoc]

"How 'bout if I knock $100 off that sealer?"  this was after he went to another office and didn't talk about the car at all.

I have a friend that used to have his own cleaning service. One of his clients was a local car dealership. His crew would come in at closing time, and work during the night shift while the place was closed.

One night, him and his crew started cleaning while a salesman was still tending to late-staying customers (husband/wife).

As usual, the salesman delivered the typical line "Well, let me go talk to my manager, and see what I can do".

Of course, he didn't go talk to anyone. He went into another office, and turned on a speaker, so he could hear what the couple was saying. He listened long enough to determine that they were willing to meet his price even if he offered no further concessions.

This was years ago. I don't know for sure that dealers still employ this tactic. But I would say that it's probably best to keep your mouth shut while your salesman is out of the room.

Funny side note. My buddy who owned the cleaning service used the speaker system to hear what his own employees were saying about him. He fired 2 of them.

[Mojo]

Keith:

There are so many ways car dealers make money. They make it off the front end with the sale, they make it off the back end with manufacture incentives, then they have hidden rebates that go to the dealer and then they also get kickers from the banks for financing.

I quit buying new cars several years ago. I look for low mileage used cars to buy simply because the loss you take on a new one. We bought a GMC Terrain for the wife this year, it was 2 years old and had 19 K miles on it. The loss the original owner took was huge.

I just bought an 09 Chevy HHR with 50 K miles on it for my personal vehicle. I paid $ 7,700 for it. I put about 3 to 5 K miles a year on a car so it will last me a while. This one will be my tow vehicle for the coach.

The other thing that keeps me from buying new is the way people in Florida treat other peoples cars in parking lots. They beat them to death. My pickup is loaded with scratches, dings and dents from other peoples car doors not to mention grocery carts that got shoved into it because people are to lazy to return them to the corrals.

Chris