Here’s another question that we are asked by our clients a lot of times. We looked online to see where we could find a guide describing the different types of furniture and found a great one that we want to share with you.

Common furniture woods have their own distinctive marks, lust like each person has his or her own unique fingerprints. The link below will explain some details or characteristics that can help you easily identify the numerous types of furniture woods available.

Most of the lines that we sell are high end lines and they do not use cheap materials on their pieces. The pieces are made to last and with proper care they definitely should. Please let us know if you would like for us to find out what kind of wood is used in your furniture!

http://home.howstuffworks.com/guide-to-furniture-woods-ga1.htm

Out with the old, in with the new. This is the reality that most of our clients face when they purchase new furniture for their home or offices. One question that we are asked a lot at Wholesale Furniture Collections is whether or not we know of a good way to donate or to get rid of our client’s old furniture.

Locally, we donate our client’s old furniture pieces as well as damaged pieces to Habitat For Humanity. We did a little bit of research on how you can donate your pieces. We found the following sources that we think will guide you the right way:

ReDo: http://www.redo.org/SearchRedo.aspx - they promote reuse as an environmentally sound, socially beneficial and economical means for managing surplus and discarded materials. The link will take you to a search engine where you can look for places in your state who you can donate your furniture too.
Habitat for Humanity: www.habitat.org - internationally known, this great foundation has affiliates all over the U.S. By conducting a quick search on their site, you can find your local affiliate and give them a call to see if they provide funiture pick-ups in your area.
Goodwill: http://locator.goodwill.org/ - about 84% of Goodwill’s revenues go directly into employment and training programs for people with disabilities and other barriers to employment. The link will take you to the Goodwill locator.
Another great way to donate items is by listing them in the free section of Craigslist: http://craigslist.org/
Whatever you do, do not throw your furniture away! Furniture donations do not only help fund great causes, they are tax deductible too!

At Wholesale Furniture Collections, we receive many calls each week from clients who are unsure of purchasing furniture from an online source. Most of them have heard some sort of bad story about furniture companies either taking forever to deliver their client’s pieces, delivering broken pieces and not correcting the problems or not delivering their pieces at all..When purchasing furniture online from us or any other source, please make sure that you do the following:

* Obtain stock information before purchasing
* Ask the company what will happen if any of the pieces arrive into your home with damages or defects.
* Do not make a payment with a check, cashier’s check or cash.

We ask that you please obtain stock information before placing your order. Stock information is easily obtainable from most companies, especially those that sell case goods. By obtaining this information, you should be able to obtain an estimate of when the pieces should ship out of the factory. Upholstery goods usually require about 4-6 weeks to be produced, sometimes up to 10 weeks. Please keep in mind that stock availabilities change daily and sometimes pieces do not become available on their expected dates for a number of reasons. You should always ask this question, “What happens if one of my pieces arrives into my home damaged or with a defect?” The answer should always be that you will have an option to either refuse the piece at the time of delivery or have the option to have the piece repaired in your home. A lot of companies offer to deliver the pieces into the front of your home. We do not. The reason why we do not offer such a service is because what usually happens is that a truck brings the pieces to the client’s home, the driver unloads them and makes them sign the delivery bill and then leaves the home. What happens next sometimes goes like this:

* The client opens the boxes and finds one or more of the pieces with some sort of damage or defect.
* The client proceeds to call the seller of the furniture to let them know about this problem. They will file a claim against the trucking company for the piece.
* The trucking company will find any way possible not to pay for the damaged piece. They will most likely say that it was “concealed” damage and not their fault. They will pass the blame onto the manufacturer.
* The manufacturer will say that it was in no way their fault and that the carrier should be responsible for the piece.
* While all of this happens, the client will have a fully paid for, broken piece in their home and will sit by waiting for the “blame” game between the shipper, manufacturer and seller to end.

The reason why we ask you not to pay with a check, cashier’s check or money order is because you will have very little recourse if the seller of the furniture does not act in the right way. A lot of places offer significantly better deals if the client pays in any of these forms. We do not. The problem with these forms of payment is that a lot of sellers who offer these types of deals do not act in the proper manner. They do not ship their items within their specified time frames, they do not ship the items at all or they do not ship them via the correct furniture carriers. To recap, the 3 most important things to check for when purchasing furniture are: stock availability, shipping method and form of payment.  Watch where you shop!

Here at Wholesale Furniture Collections, we are constantly asked whether or not our items are shipped to our clients free of charge. The concept of “free” shipping is used widely in the furniture industry. What free shipping really means is that the cost of shipping and delivering the furniture or accessories to your home or office is included in the cost of the pieces. Free shipping does not exist. It is a marketing tool used in order to have people believe that they are getting something for free when the cost is being included in the price of the item.

Let’s assume that there is a client in California who is purchasing a table that costs $1,000 from a manufacturer in North Carolina. The cost of shipping this table to her is $200. A place that includes free shipping might quote this table for $1,500 and tell their clients that the table is being shipped to them for free.

Our company will let you know what the cost is for an item and we will also let you know how much it costs for us to ship that item to you. Please keep in mind that there are two factors that affect your shipping quote. The first one is the total weight of the pieces on your order. The second factor is the distance from the source or manufacturer to your home. It costs more to ship an item from North Carolina to California than from North Carolina to New York being that the distance between the first two states is greater.

So next time that you hear or read about an item with free shipping, please consider the bottom line price and not the fact that free shipping is being offered to you.

* If you have any questions about the information contained in this blog, please contact us at info@wholesalefurniturediscount.com and we will try to answer them for you.