We cancelled this order, we cut our floor stock orders in half back in February as our store is full. We do not have any B-Y or H&M 200 Series on order at this time, nor are likely to order them for floor stock, the sofas are too heavy and too difficult to deliver.
Last edited by sarahc; 03-30-2022 at 01:15 PM.
Duane Collie
Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.
An update to this thread because we are having several folks thinking "times should be improving" on building pieces. I'm here to tell you they are not improving, and if anything - they are lengthening.
What has happened is the work force in the Carolinas has disappeared. Every company, every business in that furniture-making region is looking for workers. Many of the restaurants in and around the Hickory NC area cannot even open regular hours because they have no employees, for example. Every furniture company and virtually every business in Catawba County has a HELP WANTED sign out. There are even job fairs at the local high schools looking to hire and train the Senior graduating class students (those not going to college).
I know people are getting frustrated at the long lead times, so are we. How do we plan for what we need for floor stock in 2023, for example? What will the economy be like then? What will consumer demand be? A lot Wash DC area stores ordered way too much stock thinking the Covid home furnishing boom would last forever, and now they have inventory backed up so badly they are refusing to unload the trucks from the carriers. That's a bad place to be in when you are full in your store and your warehouse.
Patience is the key, your order will eventually get done. We can't "speed it up", and it will not be completed ahead of schedule. April '22 as I write this, we are mostly seeing orders complete that were written in July and August 2021. That's 8 to 9 months, and its regardless of the maker - they are all running that long. If you need something quickly, or even before the end of 2022, you should probably try to find something in stock that will work for your application.
Duane Collie
Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.
I ordered more H&M pieces just prior to one of the many price increases last year. They were finally shipped two days ago and now with a furniture delivery service. Duane said not to expect it any time soon as there remains a big shortage of long haul truck drivers (I live on the West Coast.) In 2012 H&M shipping was about 3 weeks to my house. In 2021 my H&M order was 7 weeks in transit. In 2022 I am not expecting to get this any sooner. Likely to receive it this in mid June 2022. Just hope it is delivered undamaged. I found out people handling your expensive leather furniture are for the most part unskilled.
We have seen a massive shift in the employee work forces in this industry as people leave for higher paying jobs and different environments, or simply retire or decide to live more simply.
Furniture delivery in particular is never an aspired-to career. No one ever says "When I grow up I want to drive diesel trucks around the country and delivery big and heavy furniture into people's homes". It's a job you fall into, not one you seek. From 1987 to 2004 I personally delivered much of our Keeping Room furniture up and down the East Coast in our Freightliner we used to have, it's a hard job. So yes, there is substantial unskilled labor in that market and there is a skill set to develop in working two guys as a team. I have two new guys for our local deliveries right now and am trying to get them trained up as well, it takes time..
Basically there were five national white glove delivery services pre-Covid that run 48 state and now there are only three that I know of.
The Best is Plycon Van Lines, by a wide margin. The problem is they are twice the price of the other two. Zero damage claims, skilled labor, easy communications, good rolling stock and most importantly it stays entirely within the Plycon company, they don't sub out. Most my clients don't want to pay their prices. They are not particularly fast.
Sun Delivery / America West is our go-to white glove delivery that balances a good price with acceptable damage rates, but has poor communication since Covid and does hand off to third party partners. Plus we can work up a price quote in less than a minute, which is important when you have twenty price inquires a day on furniture.
Sunbelt Express is about 10 to 15% more than Sun Delivery, has better communications, but is not any quicker. They will also hand off to third party partners. We have been using them more these days and are waiting to hear back from clients on recent experiences with them.
Even Hancock and Moore is seeking new hires - as is every furniture maker in America. Here's Phil Brown, who runs Hancock and Moore day-to-day talking to his existing workers to see if they know of anyone who wants to work there and learn the business. This just posted today on H&M's Facebook page.
https://fb.watch/cxpp5VsbzL/
Duane Collie
Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.
I am retired military and moved all my household goods 8 times while on my 20 years active duty. The packing and loading is no problem because you have eyes on during that process. In a door to door move there is no problem as you have eyes on when they unload that same 18-wheel van. The problems occur if (God forbid) your 18,000 pounds of belongs go into temporary storage. Trucks are off loaded into the warehouse while you are not there. No eyes on. We have had things like Persian wool rugs and expensive Ash dining room furniture sit out in the rain for a day or two, before going into the storage facility. I had my Honda 650 motorcycle dented/damaged. I know H&M packs for shipping correctly. If it is shipped in H&M boxes by the delivery services to the white glove partners it will be fine. The problem comes when the white glove partner unboxes the furniture. (No eyes on.) This is the where problems occur. The other problems occur when untrained workers take it off the truck and try to figure out how to negotiate your 36" entrance, or move it around your staircase newell post.
An update to this thread. Delivery times continue to be lengthy for ordered furniture, there is no real improvement. All furniture makers are short-staffed, every one of them. If you are looking for furniture for the Holidays, you may be already past that point by now as of the date of this post for made-to-order pieces.
What you are going to see however, is massive overstocks on furniture ordered for inventory by many stores. Knowing there were very long lead times, many stores (not The Keeping Room) put in large orders a year ago - primarily for imports - and all that is not landing at their already full warehouses. Business slowed in early March as people were ready to travel again and get outside, not buy home furnishings. It won't be long until stores start putting out sale periods for in-stock product, they have to clear their warehouses so I predict there will be bargains coming to a store near you soon.
We are even seeing some suppliers offering specials on items they have accumulating in their warehouses. They need to clear space as well for new orders coming in behind what they have now. Once its on the water, they have to take it and its more economical to sell it off at lower margins than to rent more warehouse space.
Duane Collie
Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.
It's August 2022, and production times for new orders are getting worse, not better. I know, we are all tired of hearing "Supply Chain Issues" and "Delays due to Covid". I am, you are, everyone is. But the reality is - its a real factor. Just checking around with my suppliers:
Century Upholstery and Taylor King Upholstery are at 9 to 10 months.
Bradington-Young is at 7.5 months
Jessica Charles and MARQ around 5 months
Hancock and Moore is all over the place, from 4 months to 10 to 11 months if motion pieces. Higher end leathers tend to be in stock more and move out quicker.
Hooker Furniture, Woodbridge and Jonathan Charles are all Imported, if in their warehouse its 3 weeks to ship, if out of stock up to a year. Because all the orders they placed with their factories a year ago and now landing, they have surprisingly good stock on many items for now.
There are no ways to speed up orders. You can save a little time by picking up at the factories in North Carolina and self-hauling. That will shave off 4 to 6 weeks delivery time.
Here at The Keeping Room, we are conservative on ordering floor stock. We don't know what demand will be a 8 to 12 months from now. There are lots of stories of other retail furniture stores who over-ordered during the high demand at the height of Covid and now are stuck with hundreds of pieces they cannot warehouse or sell through quickly. It's a disaster for them....we don't intend to join them in that misery and would rather have gaps in the floor than overages.
Duane Collie
Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.
I'm assuming this article claiming that warehouses are overstocked is only talking about the Ashley Furniture's of the world?
https://www.furnituretoday.com/opini...ll-mcloughlin/
I wonder if there are some deals to be had for the higher end mass market furniture, although not sure what brands those would even be.
Yes, basically a lot of the overseas manufacturers are seeing that because they have to design and order in batches far in advance. The more custom companies that build-to-order like H&M do not that going on.