Be careful out there when shopping for upholstery

I was in a retail store recently in a trendy "upscale" high-rent mall on the other side of town and this store had recently expanded from gift knick-knacks to carrying furniture, and doubled their store size. My wife likes their small stuff so I agreed to tag along inside and of course, was checking out these new upholstery offerings they had. Of course, I picked up the price tags and saw the usual:

MSRP: $ 2,579
SALE! : $ 1,579 (SAVE $ 1,000!)

I know upholstery pretty well, and I can examine it without being too obvious. I won't name the store because what they had was absolute junk. I can buy that chair they have "ON SALE" at dealer wholesale for around $ 350, and $ 50 to land it. They were getting about 4x markup on it, which doesn't surprise me too much because when you are located in the chic mall stores, that's the margins you have to make to pay the rent. There was so many problems with all the pieces - the flimsy frames, the lack of padding, cheap foam cushions, poor trim work in the sewing, almost non-existent suspension. And the rub is that there as a young couple buying a $ 3,500 sofa while I was there - 'twas all I could do to contain myself from saying something to them. But that would not be cool - they will have to learn the hard way.

The leather recliner they were selling was Chinese bi-cast. Ewwwww....not even real leather, but I doubt few would know that.

The point of this post is to try to impress upon you - the customer - to not be taken in by the fancy storefront, and the glitz, and the state-of-the-art outdoor town center environment. When you go shopping, pay attention to what you are buying, and that doesn't mean pick the right color. Examine the piece of furniture like you were a detective, looking for flaws and features. Trust your eyes and touch, don't listen to the sales person telling you how good the stuff is - they're going to tell you what you want to hear. If you do your homework and avoid getting caught up in the moment, you will begin to see real differences from one to another.

Before you buy from one of these trendy stores, get to a REAL furniture store and check out top-flight brands and ignore the colors and the price tags - focus only on the build. See how they are made, how stout the arms are, the padding around the piece, the tightness and alignment of the material pull, the suspension. Then go back to the trendy stores and compare. I think you will see a difference. Don't buy anyone's private label - you can't cross shop it and it rarely measures up to the respected brands.

Shop smart and get some value for your hard-earned dollar spent.