How to Buy Furniture Online in the States

To Buy or Not to Buy... Modern Furniture Online?

reprinted from an article from Modern Furniture Review

The Internet is a place where you can purchase almost all sorts of merchandise and fulfil all your shopping desires. Luxury items are usually at a discount online than most local walk-in retail stores. Normally with furniture I would say you should walk into a store, sit on the lounger, or inspect the tables in person to really get a good feel. However I will admit having seen enough comparisons first hand and online purchases myself, the lines begin to blur when you are talking about huge price differences... seemingly the exact same lounger $2000 in store and $1000 online? Or in some cases, that item you see online actually looks nicer! All of a sudden, it seems to make more sense to take a gamble and purchase that beautiful piece of furniture you've been eyeing online. I will share with you things I have personally discovered to really take the gamble out of such an important purchase.

Rules I follow:

1. Overall feel of vendor website - Is this website professional made? Or does it look like it was put together over night in someone's basement? I'm not talking about purely aesthetics. Is the website secure and verified? Do they accept major credit cards or only paypal? 1-800 number and live chat? Someone answers you promptly by phone or email when you contact them? These are all very important feedback for myself when I look for a reliable online store.

2. Representation of Products (Pictures, Details, etc) - These details I find to be very important. Do the gallery pictures of their products look high resolution or very generic and small in size? The clearer, bigger, and more original their pictures are, the more likely it was taken from their actual inventory instead of just pasting in generic pictures. You can even go beyond this and ask them to provide you with unedited, unphotoshopped studio pictures of that item you are interested in buying. Any legit vendor of size would have done their own studio pictures to market their products properly. Small blurry pictures are likely trying to hide details of their product and count on you to believe all popular designs are made the same.Description of Products - when you read the product description and details of their products, is it something you've read somewhere else? Copied and pasted info usually means copied and pasted pictures!