How long is too long for B-Y leather sectional?

Hi there,
I have a problem that I hope someone can help me with. My husband and I ordered the Bradington Young Roanoke leather sectional from a local furniture store in January. Paid a hefty deposit and was told wait time would be about 10 to 12 weeks. We called store around the 14 week mark and were told that it was going to take an additional 4 more weeks. Fine... that didn't seem too long. Today it has been 5 weeks later (total of 19 weeks) and we were informed that the leather we chose has been on backorder and B-Y didn't know when it would be coming in. Couldn't they have told us about the backorder earlier? Husband asked if we could chose a different leather and he was told then this order would have to be canceled and the whole process would have to start anew. What are the norms for this type of order? Is this a standard wait? We had to put $2000 down as a deposit. I am getting a bit nervous. Thanks for any reply's.
Meg

Meg,

I was good with the story right up until I got to the part where they told you that you had to cancel the order and start over if you selected an alternate leather. That's a load of horse-puckey. I change covers for customers all the time for various reasons and its as simple as sending a fax to BY with one paragraph of the details. It takes all of ten minutes to make a change.

I've been a B-Y dealer since the late 80's and I can tell you with reasonable certainty that 90% of their hides are in-stock or within 2 weeks of being in-stock and they ALWAYS know when they have hides on the water inbound.

You ordered this in January?!?! I get 90% of my Bradington Young orders in 5 weeks or less, and the remaining 10% in under 9 weeks. What I think has happened is you ordered from a store that has a 'credit hold' at Bradingtion Young (factoring agent is CIT Financial Services) and your dealer has not paid his prior bills. So what happens then is your order is most likely in a 'hold' file at B-Y until your dealer pays his past due invoices. This is not uncommon in today's business climate.

Your options at this point:

1) Call your local dealer up and ask him for the BY Order Acknowledgement number. If they balk at giving it to you, it may be because they don't have one as the order never made it past credit hold. If they do give it to you, then call Bradington-Young HQ in Cherryville NC (704-435-5881) and ask for Customer Service. Ask them status of the order with the referenced acknowledgement number. if you don't have an ACK #, then still call BY and ask Customer Service and if your dealer has a "credit hold" on their account as well as hide availability on your leather chosen. Should they not want to give you the info, then get the number of the BY rep for your state and call him.

2) Did you put the order deposit on a credit card? If so, you can begin a chargeback if the dealer refuses to immediately refund your money, You can then order from another store.

3) What's the leather series you ordered? The hide number? I'll check status of the hide on Monday if you like.

I see this happen time and time again with stores and unfortunately its not always easy to check the business health of the store you are ordering from. I'd be very surprised if the problem is with Bradington Young at this point, sounds like a classic case of a dealer just a few steps away from closing his doors. They use customer deposits as operating capital and give you the endless delay stories to keep you off their back. I could be wrong, but its my guess based on what you've described in your post.

How long for H&M order. I know someone who odered chair and sofa from the T&C almost 3 months ago and still does not have it. I can beleive the factory is backlogged this long. What could be the issue, the store is not in any credit problems the person checked that out.

Average production times from H&M are 5 to 6 weeks *if* the cover is in-stock. If the cover is out of stock, then 12 weeks or longer is not unusual.