J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Ok, serves me right for watching telly but how can the Sofa industry pay for so much advertising, how much does it cost, how many sofas do you need to sell, it must work as they do it every year !

How much markup is on an £800 sofa ?

Jamz3k

I worked in a furniture store for very short while, mark up was generally 3 times the cost price.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

I wish there were more adverts for ceramic hob sales

corradoboy

Knock up a wooden frame, add a bare minimum of foam padding, wrap in a few square metres of cloth, DONE ! Says me who bought the loathed one a Laura Ashley occasional chair for Xmas

TelBoy

My sister was lured by the lavish advertising of DFS. New leather suite. It's bloody horrible

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Bit more to it that that;

Retailer screws the manufacturer on sale or return (off-loading their overheads so they can blow it on advertising).

Manufacturers knock ups generic frame out of cheapest wood available. To minimise overheads further they go a little further:

Load them up on a shipping container along with required fabric.

Ship to china

Get a sweat shop (full of children - just speculating ) working for pennies a day to do all the covering.

Ship it all back.

Distribute them to pre-odered customers and shops.

Unsold items get stuck on display

Sell it to customer at a huge mark up with a double discount and £100 trade in, with 3months interest free credit at 28.5% APR

What doesn't get sold gets given back to the manufacturer to deal with - including cancelled orders (at their own expense - hence the factory/seconds shops).




Thats how it was when my mum's partners was still in the business before he wound it up (he did have dealings with DFS before they screwed him over on the SoR stock, amongst others) . Nowadays everything is made in China, they just ship the wood and fabric over to assemble as they can't get any over there (barring bamboo ). Unless its leather....the leather comes from Italy...then its chucked together in China. Thats why you will see a Italian leather Sofa in DFS. It is an Italian leather Sofa....but they conveniently skip the made in china bit ).

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Bit more to it that that;

Retailer screws the manufacturer on sale or return (off-loading their overheads so they can blow it on advertising).

Manufacturers knock ups generic frame out of cheapest wood available. To minimise their overheads they then do the following:

Load them up on a shipping container along with required fabric.

Ship to china

Get a sweat shop (full of children - just speculating ) working for pennies a day to do all the covering.

Ship it all back.

Distribute them to pre-odered customers and shops.

Unsold items get stuck on display

Sell it to customer at a huge mark up with a double discount and £100 trade in, with 3months interest free credit at 28.5% APR.

What isn't sold gets sent back to the manufacturer to deal with - including cancelled orders, often at their own expense. Hence the factory/seconds warehouses.



Thats how it was when my mum's partner was still in the business before he wound it up (he did have dealings with DFS before they screwed him over on SoR stock, amongst others) . Nowadays everything is made in China, they just ship the wood over to assemble as they can't get any over there (barring bamboo ). Unless its leather....the leather comes from Italy...then its chucked together in China (thats why you will see a Italian leather Sofa in DFS. It is an Italian leather Sofa....but they conveniently skipped the made in china bit .

TelBoy

Not everything is made in China, well not if you avoid the warehouse places like DFS.

What amuses me, is that DFS have exact (not just close) copies of sofas on sale in places like Furniture Village, Dansk Design (which are Italian made). Except as you say the DFS versions have cheap Chinese frames and normalised ie cheaper leather, for about 60% of the price.

My advice? Pay the extra 40%

Clarebabes

You need an induction hob, ceramic are soooo ssssslllllooooooowwww

FlightMan

We've had a Furniture Village 3 piece and 2 piece leather sofa for 5 years now. It looks new.

A friend has had a DFS copy for 6 months. It looks 20 years old.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Is that 40% extra on top of the double discount and £100 trade in, with 3months interest free credit at 28.5% APR?

Or did you mean their RRP price which has upwards of a 200% mark-up?

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Gas woman. Gas. Cookability, even during a power cut

Clarebabes

Nah, never liked gas really, but had to endure it as it is instant heat. However, now we have an induction hob, it is the best thing since sliced bread! Boils water quicker than my fast boil kettle, and is as controllable as gas, so I love it. A lot safer than gas too....

If we have a power cut, I have plenty of gas on the camping stove

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

We had a DFS one for a while, it was, strangley it was indestructible, kids, dogs, crayons, vomit, wine, Sulphuric acid, Uranium 235, you get the idea and it never looked any different.

Steve vRS

We have 2 DFS sofas that we bought in 2006. Still going strong with 2 kids and a cat!

I'm amazed though that trading standards don't do them though as they always have a sale on and so how can they advertise pre-sale prices?

Steve

TelBoy

That's what my sister's one is going to be like i think, take whatever's thrown at it. Personally i prefer a decent piece of furniture that will get better with age, but not everybody has the ability to have that in a busy family home. DFS sofas serve a purpose, they must do, lots of people keep buying them.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

Wasn't there something in the news recently about leather sofas from China burning the skin as there was something toxic in the leather?

lordharding

iTrader: (1)

yes that was argos ,walmslys and a couple of small independants

big court cases going through at the moment due to one manufactuer who decided to spray the leather to stop moisture in the containors instead of the well used satchels that soak in the moisture


DFS sofas have a very high mark up as they push the 5 years interest free

sofa costs £150 ish could retail it at £299 to give a decent mark up but they price it at £499 to allow £200 for the interest free price for the five year period those not in the know are happy to pay a tenner a month .

sofa are a lot cheaper then 10 years ago due to asian factories quality controll is very good on many products from overseas as parts are shipped over from europe to be assembled

workers are paid £10-18 per week which is the equilvent of £300 in this country and they survive quite nicely on that for rice and essentials no shortage of workers so hence no need to pay any more then the market rate

I got a builder and joiner for £2 a day and a labourer for a quid to built my holliday home is asia


its the place to go