Re: Should a COM sofa cost me as much as a leather sofa before I pay for the fabric?
This is commonplace in the industry. No one really wants your COM order, so you pay more, simple as that. You think of it as a rip-off, but its like going to your mechanic and asking him to use parts for your car that you bought off EBAY, or bringing your own wine to a restaurant and asking them to serve it to you. Many retailers won't even take your COM order unless you buy the COM fabric from them.
As a retailer, your COM means that I have to package the fabric and ship it off to the maker, and follow that off with a detailed set of instructions how to apply the material. If you think you can simply ship a roll of fabric to someone and they know how to use it, you would be mistaken. I've had COM's installed inside-out on more than one occasion, when the inside was so rough you would think a 5- year- old could tell which was the correct side. So there's more work for the retailer, and less profit on the deal because the ticket is lower. Dunno about where you work, but most people don't like to work harder for less money. I will do outside COMs in my store, but there are handling fees added to cover the extra work and shipping costs.
At the manufacturing level, its because it requires special handling all through the trip. This starts with the letter from the dealer specifying how to apply the material and what is coming via UPS. When the bolt of fabric is shipped, it has to be sorted from the 75 other packages they get daily on the dock and matched up with the right order. Sounds easy until you realize there are probably 30 other bolts of material coming in that day, with the bulk of them poorly- labled as to what they are and what they match up to. Production lines are all about time-management. A custom order of any kind requires a stoppage in the normal flow of things while a specific instruction sheet is read and figured out. You're going to pay for that stoppage and extra handling. Lastly, if the maker can't sell you the cover, he's losing his ticket sale and profit margin is decreased as well.
The bottom line is you are asking for a custom and will have to pay for it. The production system is not geared towards non-standard items .
Here's another tip. When you use COM from an outside source, you MUST unroll the entire bolt and mark flaws in the bolt with a piece of masking tape if you want them cut out of the pattern. If you don't, then if you get a pull or bad section of material in the middle of your completed COM piece, neither the manufacturer or the dealer will replace it or be responsible for it. You must mark them out yourself. This is especially critical if you are buying 'seconds' or from a 'mill end shop', because most their fabrics sold as a bolt will have flaws.
Duane Collie
Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
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