Public service announcement about Ashley Furniture

[Trigger Time]

We had to fire Kittles. We get it all from Bob's.

We have bought from them too a couple years ago

 

[actaeon277]

With the supply chain being massively disrupted by people that have no idea what a supply chain is, it's gonna be touch and go for months.

 

[churchmouse]

Last piece of new furniture we bought was a double recliner couch from Lazy boy. Motorized and it is the real deal.
The 1st 2 we picked out were weeks out until we found the one we have and they had 2 at the warehouse. We had it delivered the next day.

This thread leads me to believe that Ashly is owned/operated by PSA.....

 

[Hoosierkav]

It took me nearly an hour and four people later to get Centurylink to fix my bill. Now, I just ask, "Can you fix this problem? No, please escalate this to the next level. I'll wait." Get up to a high enough level person with the ability to actually take care of the customer instead of the minimum wage call taker and usually you get some satisfaction. If not, it's clear the organization doesn't care and then it's game on.

 

[terrehautian]

I think I had the only positive experience there. Said 2-3 weeks to deliver, it was delivered in the third week. That being said, I won't shop there unless I can take it home that day (very unlikely there).

 

[Sigblaster]

I used to work at a furniture store, but this was 30 years ago, so the industry may have changed. I'm forging ahead anyway, so anyone currently in the industry, feel free to correct me.

First off, I would never buy anything made by Ashley. That's all I'm going to say about that.

When my kids were little and I needed some extra shelves to store toys and books and whatnot, I would buy small bookcases from Walmart for $20 or so. I knew the quality was crap, and these were not going to be long-term furniture solutions, but they served their purpose when they needed to, and I didn't feel bad when I busted them up and sent them out with the trash.

When I worked at the furniture store, the markup was between usually 30% and 70%, and generally, the lower the quality, the higher the markup. The cheaper, lower quality stuff generally got a big markup, because some of it wouldn't even survive shipping, and it it wasn't cost effective to ship it back. Also, when customers realized it was crap and returned it, it wasn't shipped back either. Some manufacturers would issue credits based on shipping damage and returns, because they didn't want it back either. What the heck were they going to do with it anyway, replace a particleboard panel that was glued to 2 other panels and send it back out?

Now, let's talk about that markup. That's not pure profit, it's what they charge over cost to cover their glitzy showrooms, and interior designers/marketers, utilities, taxes, and salesmen's commissions. That last one is important. If you're not comfortable with haggling at a retail store, skip to the next paragraph. The highest earner at the store I worked at was one heck of a salesman. He was a smoker, as was I, and we'd chat in the smoke break area. He knew people were loathe to haggle at a retail store, so he'd slash the price on stuff and cut people deals, lowering his commission, but he'd still make a killing on repeat customers and referrals. He didn't have the highest commission percentage, but he had the highest commission dollars. Here's one trick he shared with me. When he made a sale, he wouldn't give the customer one business card, he'd give them 4. He would write the customer's name on the back of one, and give them three more with "Referred by (customer's Name)" on the back. He would tell the customer to only give them to his/her closest friends. I thought that was a brilliant ploy! He had a pile of "referred by" cards in his desk. But the lesson is, salesmen DO have room to haggle. Better to make a bit less than make nothing at all. Find a salesman who knows this.

 

[TangoFoxtrot]

That suck to hear they went downhill, they used to be honest

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

 

[maxwelhse]

Last piece of new furniture we bought was a double recliner couch from Lazy boy. Motorized and it is the real deal.
The 1st 2 we picked out were weeks out until we found the one we have and they had 2 at the warehouse. We had it delivered the next day.

This thread leads me to believe that Ashly is owned/operated by PSA.....

I don't own much furniture, but most of it that was more than a C-note came from Lay-Z-Boy and I've been pleased with it. That said, my 2 recliners and couch cost more than several of the cars I drove for years. Still no complaints. It's also worth mentioning that I had to wait 3 months, in non-Covid times, to have mine built and delivered. They were up front about it though and their timing was accurate.

The stuff I've seen at all of the stores mentioned here (never been to Bob's as I'm not in the Indy area) was basically all junk no matter the cost. Even the stuff I saw at Ethan Allen was garbage. I ended up mail ordering a bedroom set because I refused to spend that amount of money and accept _any_ amount of particle board (and sadly even my Lay-Z-Boys are full of OSB) and that, or custom built, was all I could find that was made out of mostly "real" wood.

 

[Sigblaster]

Ok, I know I said to skip to the next paragraph, but I had to cut the post off because I knew I was getting a bit long-winded, as I tend to do.

So here's the next paragraph:

Buying furniture should not be a hurried decision, and please consider alternatives to the standard furniture retailers. My bedroom set is still solid as heck after 20 years, and I got it at Big Lots funiture store. While I'm a big fan of mainstream hardwoods like oak, this stuff is well-made out of parawood. Yeah, I didn't know what that was either, so I went home and researched it (on 56K dialup) and found out it's a durable medium-density wood made from rubber trees that are used up from producing rubber. It's well made, durable, and I got a sleigh bed, dresser, chest of drawers, and 2 night stands for like 500 bucks.

I was converting my loft to a bedroom, so I needed an actual armoire to substitute for a closet. Trying to find one that had an actual cedar back rather that a cardboard back with a cutout for a CRT TV was a nightmare. I was in Kittles and opened a $10,000 armoire to find it had a cardboard back with a cutout. Ridiculous.

I got the sofa and chair in my den at a garage sale for $125 probably 10 or 12 years ago. I don't even know who made it, but it's solid and still looks good. Before I bought it, I asked if I could test it, and if I broke it, I'd buy it, but they'd have to put it at THEIR curb. I sat on it, dropped into it it with my arse, flopped full-body onto it, and not even a squeak or a crack. I bought the set and brought it home.

I wanted some curio-type cabinets that had shelves above and drawers or doors below, so I hit Craigslist. Got a nice pair of old Ethan Allen's for $250 for the pair. Solid wood and classic styling. They looked brand new, but dated. I don't mind dated. Seriously, if you want quality, solid wood furniture, check out Craigslist. Plenty of people cleaning out their parent's estates and dumping quality furniture for beer money prices.

 

[Sigblaster]

Even the stuff I saw at Ethan Allen was garbage.

Like I said, if you want good Ethan Allen, you gotta find old Ethan Allen on Craigslist. If you're patient, it'll come up, and you gotta be ready to say "I'll be there in an hour with cash."

 

[Sigblaster]

Oh, man, someone please help me out with this. There was a line of furniture that was popular around 1990. Really cheesy stuff. It was pretty much particleboard, except for the bedroon stuff. It was pedestal type living room furniture, the end tables were either hexagonal or octagonal. All the furniture was finished in either white or black. The living room furniture was sprayed with some sort of rough-textured paint. The edges of the tops were routed out and filled with plastic gold tim. The tops were plexi mirrors. How many of you remeber this stuff? How many of you owned this stuff?

 

[Sigblaster]

The bedroom stuff was made just a cheaply, but didn't have a painted finish. Just a thin synthetic laminate. What was this stuff? Was it Ashley?

 

[maxwelhse]

Like I said, if you want good Ethan Allen, you gotta find old Ethan Allen on Craigslist. If you're patient, it'll come up, and you gotta be ready to say "I'll be there in an hour with cash."

You said that after I said that.

I have nothing against antique furniture at all and agree with you fully, but what I normally don't have is a lot of patience. Every time I've needed to buy something decent, nothing decent on the used market was to be found in the timeline I was prepared to wait.

I've generally gone in the exact opposite direction these days and I confess my method isn't suited for many people: I've been buying garage/shop/professional kitchen grade stuff and using it for inside the house furniture. It's all mostly steel, it's going to outlive me by at least a generation if I do nothing more than keep it dry, and the prices are radically cheaper than actual furniture.

It's not a look that is for everybody, and I have admittedly unique demands that pushed me in that direction, but it's far and away the most cost effective way to get yourself seriously stout furniture that you won't have to buy again unless you just decide you want to. Wife buy in would be another challenge, but I don't have that problem...

 

[maxwelhse]

Oh, man, someone please help me out with this. There was a line of furniture that was popular around 1990. Really cheesy stuff. It was pretty much particleboard, except for the bedroon stuff. It was pedestal type living room furniture, the end tables were either hexagonal or octagonal. All the furniture was finished in either white or black. The living room furniture was sprayed with some sort of rough-textured paint. The edges of the tops were routed out and filled with plastic gold tim. The tops were plexi mirrors. How many of you remeber this stuff? How many of you owned this stuff?

You just described 90% of Value City Furniture in 1990 as I remember it.

We were much more classy than that... Sauder flat pack all the way!

 

[Sigblaster]

You said that after I said that.

I have nothing against antique furniture at all and agree with you fully, but what I normally don't have is a lot of patience. Every time I've needed to buy something decent, nothing decent on the used market was to be found in the timeline I was prepared to wait.

I've generally gone in the exact opposite direction these days and I confess my method isn't suited for many people: I've been buying garage/shop/professional kitchen grade stuff and using it for inside the house furniture. It's all mostly steel, it's going to outlive me by at least a generation if I do nothing more than keep it dry, and the prices are radically cheaper than actual furniture.

It's not a look that is for everybody, and I have admittedly unique demands that pushed me in that direction, but it's far and away the most cost effective way to get yourself seriously stout furniture that you won't have to buy again unless you just decide you want to. Wife buy in would be another challenge, but I don't have that problem...

We all appoint our homes in the way that it suits and works best for us. You went for LA-Z-BOY, which is a very smart choice. They are the go-to brand for quality. Their brand name has become a generic term for the gold standard of quality, like Band Aid or Kleenex. There's a reason for that. There's also a reason people don't buy brands that market themselves as "comparable to" Band-Aid, or "just like" Kleenex. Ok, store brands do, but does it work?

My home also has some unconventional furnishings. But the aesthetics make us happy. And a lot of it is driven by functionality. I want to replace my sofa and chair with 3 to 5 LA-Z-Boys, but I'm picky about what I want, and they don't make it.

 

[Sigblaster]

You just described 90% of Value City Furniture in 1990 as I remember it.

We were much more classy than that... Sauder flat pack all the way!

Cheap furniture gets you through though. They should market it as "Buy this until you're older and can afford better".

But no, this was ****ty furniture sold at the 70% markup level, and people were gobbling it up because it was fashionable. Probably very little survived, because so many drunks fell on them and crushed them, or the mirror tops were ruined by coke-cutting razorblades. Seems probable. Not that I care about the tables or people snorting coke. Just an observation.

 

[maxwelhse]

Cheap furniture gets you through though. They should market it as "Buy this until you're older and can afford better".

Strongly agreed, but the stuff I've seen lately is even a shadow of its previously horrible quality self. The last time I looked, you couldn't even buy a flat-pack bookcase with one-piece sides anymore. They're basically 2 short cases stacked on each other and held together by cardboard.

I continue to wonder what level of poor quality people will accept and people continue to surprise me with their answers.

 

[spec4]

After buying two LazyBoy recliners with a console in the middle, I will never buy their products again. Quality and service issues. And we paid full boat for that furniture.

 

[warren5421]

Went to La-z-boy Monday to buy a recliner for $599. Told the sales person we would take it, was told it would be $599 plus tax, plus $40 to pick-up in store or $90 to bring to house and would be a week before we could get as it had to be shipped from wearhouse in Columbus, Ohio. Told them to got to H*** and walked out as delivery cost to store is not my problem. Also was told I couldn't see a manager.

At Godby was told they could not get that chair as it was a special for La-z-boy stores only. They had a $10 in store pick-up fee.

 

[muncie21]

I have an Ashley leather couch w/recliners and loveseat that I purchased 8 or so years ago that has held up very well over the years....and I didn't pay anywhere near the prices that equivalent setups from La-Z-Boy were selling for. 10 years of use from a couch is a pretty good deal in my book.