Is the internet always right?

[Stephanie]

Hi,
I just stumbled upon your site after combing through all kinds of sites reviewing furniture. My husband and I are trying to decide between some living room pieces, mainly in leather. We love the Hancock & Moore Claudette sofa, and I'm looking at buying some chairs and a chaise from Ethan Allen to go with it. Growing up, Ethan Allen had a sterling reputation as a furniture company. I assumed they still did, until I asked the internet.
I was shocked at how many negative (reeeally negative) reviews focused on customer service! And negative comments on quality aren't rare, either. Are they right? Or is it a skewed sample of angry customers? Has Ethan Allen quality dropped? Should we look elsewhere, even though I loooove the chair and chaise?
Hoping for an honest assessment of quality,
Stephanie

[drcollie]

Ethan Allen, like many furniture companies, went from a USA-made product to a fully offshore made company back in the 90's, when the rush was on to get to the Pacific Rim countries for cheap labor. Then they pulled back some of their production to North America. Depending on whom you want to listen to, the old USA made product was excellent and the newer imported stuff not so much. Here's a 2007 interview with FAROOQ KATHWARI, CEO of Ethan Allen, discussing where their furniture is made, etc:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1944154/posts

One of the problems with saying a particular 'brand' is either good or no good is that as you can see they have a global production scheme. So while maybe their sofa that's made in the USA is decent, the table coming from their Philippines or Vietnamese manufacturing facility may not be so good. The best way I think is to arm yourself with information as to how to determine if the build on a piece is good quality, then look at the pieces yourself and decide. There is plenty of information here on the forum to assist you in determining build quality. Like the saying goes 'the devil is in the details' and so it is with furniture making. YOU have to decide with your own eyes and turn a deaf ear to the salesman's pitch. Its really not difficult to determine a quality piece if you train yourself on what to look for - you can tell !

[wintersummer]

We have an Ethan Allen leather sofa and table, purchased around 1988. They both are still in good condition. We went back to Ethan Allen several years ago, looking for a casegood unit on which to place a television. I was shocked at how the construction had changed. We decided to not purchase Ethan Allen based on our personal evaluation of the product. I really didn't do much internet reading in advance of that period of furniture shopping.

I did lots and lots of reading to help us make decisions about our new sofa and chair purchases. Duane is correct. After a period of time, you can really start to spot quality. We've settled on Hancock and Moore for sofas and chairs. We are still looking for the right company for a bed.

[simplyjeff]

Mr. Kathwari became CEO of Ethan Allen in the mid-1980s. His claim to fame that brought him to that position was that he introduced Ethan Allen to highly profitable imported accessory items from Asia which helped keep the company afloat during some difficult economic times. As CEO it was only natural that he he continued the trend introducing more and more imports into the company's stores while closing down old, no longer profitable New England factories.