Watch out for Decorators

Recently I had a customer come to the store and order a pair of expensive matching sofas for his home, I put the orders in the day he was in the store without a deposit tendered so he could take advantage of the sale period that was ending. I'm a pretty trusting guy and he said he'd mail a check, so I ordered his pieces for him. The check didn't arrive over the next couple of days but I wasn't concerned, sometimes the mail is slow. When I came into my store this morning there was a voice mail that said "I had a decorator come in and she said it was too much furniture for the room and they are too large for the space, so I'm not going to be sending a check for deposit." This put me into an immediate panic, because if the leather was cut on these sofas already (and that can happen in less than 72 hours after an order is faxed in), I was stuck with these pieces and I don't need two identical matching sofas at that price point for my store. I literally dived for the phone to call my supplier and luckily I was able to cancel the order as the production tickets had been made but they had not pulled and cut the leather, so I was OK to cancel. Lesson Learned on my part - don't be so trusting. No more orders submitted until a deposit is in-hand unless you are a prior customer of mine. Anyways, my point is this....

Decorators make money one of two ways. Either they are working on a job cost basis (Fee per job or hourly rate) or they earn their wages by selling the client furniture/furnishings. Since most consumers don't want to pay a fair hourly rate, its usually done by the latter. So, they do the decorating for 'free' or a nominal charge as that's what the consumer demands - and if you hire one like that then you MUST expect them to reject any choice that you made on your own at a store. I've seen that happen hundreds of times over the years. The thing is, they never tell a client the reason they are rejecting their choice is because they have to sell you the pieces in order to make some money, they just tell you that your choices won' work.

Now in the above scenario, I don't know if the sofas were really too large for the room as the decorator told my customer after he ordered them. Maybe they were, maybe they were not. But I do know the second I head his voice mail say 'I had a decorator come over' that the order was kablooey and being cancelled, even before he finished his sentence on the voice mail.

Moral of this story: If you want a decorator to help you, then be prepared to pay them $ 100 an hour if you want to make your own selections. If you don't want to do that, then don't expect them to approve your purchases that you don't buy through them. There is no such thing as 'free', and they have to make a living, too. They may not have access to every furniture line, and you almost certainly will pay more buying through them as well - so my advice is to go the hourly rate for services rendered and you're more likely to get an honest opinion on everything.