Terrible experience with leathergroups

Thought I'd post this just as FYI. I ordered a brompton chair from leathergroups in January, after reading posts on the forum indicating some attempt at good quality work. It seemed like a good price:value proposition, and were excited when they called to set a delivery date. Suddenly the day before arrival the delivery company called and said "there was damage." No details. I emailed leathergroups and they said they'd get right on it, find out what's wrong, etc. Long story short it's been 4 months of them saying how they've been trying everything. The delivery company talks about how they provide "world class" service. I was eventually told there was a puncture in a leather panel and that it'd be fixed at the shipping company and that leather would be shipped to them to fix it. This sounded fishy so I wanted pictures detailing the problem and the fix. Nothing. . maybe others have had a great experience with them, or the other posters were just shills, but now I'm hunting for a vendor that does quality without charging an arm/leg. So far reading this forum I've not found any evidence that such a thing exists.

Most likely - and this is just my guess - that's an import and they cannot repair the leather. They may not have any more pieces in their warehouse, so they may have to wait on a container. That leather sounds like it may be a pull-up hide, and they are very difficult to repair vs a painted or finished leather. If you have waited 4 months for a replacement, ask for a refund. If paid for by a credit card, you have options to get your money back. Costing "An Arm and a Leg" is pretty hard to quantify, if you are looking for something specific in a defined price range, let me know and I'll see if I can come up with some ideas.

Thanks for the reply and your explanation makes total sense. They said they'd refund me but I was wondering why it took so long and your explanation makes it clear. They made it sound like everything was just about ready and that "the leather is just about there" and "our workers are right on it." They know how to use the right buzzwords to hide their product.

Appreciate all the information re quality vs no quality furniture. After reading several of your educational posts, I dropped into a Restoration hardware outlet and saw how cheap the goods are. It's all made in China (could see the tags, claiming "CARB2 COMPLIANT," which makes you wonder with the Lumber liquidators scandal). Much of the stuff at the outlet is damaged/discontinued stuff sold at a fraction, but you could see the wood was cheap looking laminate/pressboard under a few scuffs. RH's business model is flashy marketing, hire good designers -- and skimp on the build quality.

We like more modern type look so a lot of the stuff we've seen is not our cup of tea. Wanted to get your (and others) opinion on italydesign.com. Beautiful design, but want to know what the build quality/construction is like with some of these "italian designs." They say it's imported from Italy but I know much of the so called italian designers do the same outsourcing to china. In HM's catalog I liked the look of the poet, fireplace and wave chairs, but there's no nearby HM retailers and those that are within 100 miles look like they lack a large stock of chairs to see/feel .

Thanks for all the great info

Hi, we are LeatherGroups.com, the manufacturer and retailer of this customer's chair and would like to offer some input on the post above.

Just to be clear, the products our factory produces here in the U.S. (Los Angeles, CA) are made with kiln-dried hardwood frames, heavy gauge steel suspension (multiple options), feather & down cushioning and leathers offered by Moore & Giles such as genuine Italian Brompton Cocoa, Berkshire and many others.

We had to do a bit of research in our system, as we have no un-resolved repair issues with customers, but we ultimately were able to locate this customer, and the details of his situation:

- This customer ordered one our our American made Braxton leather chairs in Italian Brompton Cocoa on 1/1/15 to be shipped to him in Lafayette, CA.
- This customer's chair was built with 8-way hand tied suspension and feather & down cushions here in California.
- Around February 23rd, we sent him photos of his order before packaging, which are attached to this post. We send them to all customers. His chair was shipped that day via Sun Delivery.
- Sun Delivery is a wonderful company, but as with all companies (even ours!) they are not perfect. Their average turnaround nationwide for delivery is approximately 10-14 business days, but this customer's order took longer in transit.
- Just before delivery on March 20th, Sun Delivery discovered a transit damage issue with the chair.
- This occurred while we were awaiting a re-supply shipment of Brompton Cocoa from Italy, so it did take about April 19th for us to get a hide of the leather sent to Sun Delivery.
- Sun Delivery has in-house technicians capable of replacing a leather panel (we were NOT going to repair, but replace the entire leather panel) but the customer was not comfortable that it could be done to factory spec and wanted us to send pictures after completion. We assured him it would be to factory spec, and that if it was not, we would build him a new chair, and he could even use the other chair while we built a replacement, with all shipping and re-delivery costs to be at our expense.
- After we repeatedly asked Sun Delivery for updates and photos, by May 7th, the customer was understandably done and demanded a refund.
- We gave him a full refund and offered him his choice of gift cards as an apology for the experience, but we never received a response.

This is a rare instance for us, and we'll acknowledge that we and Sun Delivery failed him in this situation. Our apologies to this customer for the waste of your time. Our customer process is set up to communicate with customers promptly and to keep them up to date at every step in the process. Our quoted production times are 6-8 weeks, but 90% of our orders leave the factory in 4-5 weeks.

To the customer affected: It matters to us that things did not go well, and we do all take it to heart here. By now we hope you've found something to suit your needs. Our offer still stands to make a replacement and we'll do it at a DEEP discount, with not a penny collected until you're sitting on a chair you love.

Either way, we wish you the best!

The entire team at LeatherGroups.com


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