Dead Samples

[drcollie]

Covid-19 has really set the furniture industry sideways. Lots of orders, but Sales Reps are not going on the road. That means there will be a LOT of dead samples at the store that you go shopping at. We dealers don't clean out the discontinued fabrics and leathers ourselves, because we have to do it manually, and it takes hours and hours. The Sales Reps have a scanner and dedicated software to read the barcodes and pull them out in minutes, not hours. But since the Reps are not on the road, that means all stores selling furniture will have a lot of dropped samples that are still in the racks. I sell a lot of Hancock and Moore and did a manual clean-out of my main store handle today (the ones the customers use) and look at what I pulled, over 100 dropped leathers.



So when you go shopping, be SURE to not select just one leather or fabric, select several. Then ask if they are all current and be patient while they check, in many cases the dealer has to make a phone call to the factory (not happening on Saturdays and Sundays). Otherwise you may be placing an order only to get a phone call a week later that the cover you selected has been dropped and is no longer available. Have your back-up choices close at hand. This will eventually resolve itself and Reps will get back on the road in due time. For now, don't get your heart set on just one cover for your project until you can verify its current.

Also something to be aware of as well One of my clients called me to order leather furniture and had all her selections picked out. I wrote the order as per her specifications. When the furniture arrived it was not as she expected and she was convinced the factory mixed up the leathers and didn't send her what she ordered. After some investigative work, she did get exactly what she ordered, however she took the leather selection off a floor model at another store, and it was marked incorrectly on the tag. So BE SURE the cover you are ordering is accurate, and I always suggest getting a sample to make sure, don't go by what you might see on another store's price tag.