Let’s face it; most consumers don’t take the time to create a design budget when decorating a home. More than likely, homeowners tend to shop as they go when it comes to furnishing a space. This can lead to most people spending large sums of money over time without a real plan and without knowing the true costs of furnishings.
On the flip side of that are those homeowners who decide that the process of furnishing a home is overwhelming and decide to hire an interior designer. When clients are then presented with the design budget, most often receive sticker shock. Why is that? Because they haven’t factored in other fees besides the cost of the furniture itself into the overall budget. These fees are what I like to call “silent fees”. Although silent, they are very important and go hand in hand with furniture costs. Seriously, your furniture cannot be delivered without them!
Let’s discuss the furniture delivery process below.
Sales Tax
Sales tax is inevitable and will be applied to your furnishings. Unless you live in one of the 5 states that doesn’t impose a sales tax rate. Most consumers and clients alike are aware of this silent fee but sometimes forget to factor into their overall cost.
Shipping/Freight Fees
In the world of ‘Amazon Prime’ and ‘free 2-day shipping’, consumers sometimes forget that nothing is actually ‘FREE’ and there are human hands doing a lot of behind the scenes work. Whether you shop retail or purchase trade-only furnishings through a designer, shipping and freight fees will be included.
Retailers are able to purchase furnishings at a much lower cost due to volume. This allows retail stores to hide the costs and fees associated with shipping, freight and receiving in those prices; making consumers believe they are receiving a great deal.
However; most interior design firms, including Decor By Demi, do not operate at the same volume as retail stores. As a result, I do not receive volume discounts and cannot cover the costs associated with shipping & delivery.
So you need to get your furniture from Point A to B, right? This is where freight comes into play and what the process looks like.
When you make a furniture purchase from a manufacturer, that furniture ships via a freight service; which is a very large semi truck that brings your items across the country. Freight line carriers (big semi trucks) are the ONLY method manufacturers use to ship furniture. Sorry, but there is no way to Fed Ex a sofa to your doorstep!
Most consumers that have purchased through a retail store never see the freight charge because its usually hidden in the full retail price. However; when you work with a designer this fee is generally included as a line item in the design budget.
Those freight line carriers then drop your goods at a receiving warehouse, which is a place that has either a loading dock or a forklift and a team of people to unload that truck.
receiving fees
Upon arrival at the receiving warehouse, all items are:
Unloaded from the truck and “received” against a manifest and logged into inventory. Any item with visible damage to packaging will be refused.
Every item is then unwrapped, unboxed or uncrated & thoroughly inspected for damage, imperfections or defects within 48 hours of arrival.
Any damaged items or imperfections discovered once unboxed/unwrapped are notated (Note: there is always damages). The warehouse then notifies the interior decorator and he/she works on the back end to rectify any issues with the manufacturer. In the case of retail, the consumer would be notified by the retailer that their item would be delayed due to damages.
Any pieces that need to be assembled will be put together.
Approved furniture is then re-wrapped, re-boxed or re-crated until its time for your install. If the original packaging is deemed insufficient, the warehouse will blanket wrap the item using their own materials instead.
As you can see, there is a lot of hard work that goes into this. I must note there are some receiving warehouses that use special inventory management software that allows them to take photos of every item. Each photo is assigned a bar code and with a press of a button, it can provide details about that piece and where it is located in the warehouse.
white glove delivery fees
Next up is delivery and install of your furniture! All of your beautiful brand new furniture will be removed from storage, loaded and secured into either a box truck or trailer (or both). This will take at least 2 guys, a forklift and some serious muscle. They have a pain staking process to ensure your furniture is not damaged on this last leg of the journey.
Then they hit the road and once at their destination, they start to unload the truck and un-wrap all of the furniture. They wear protective booties & gloves while in your home and handling your new furniture to ensure they don’t get anything dirty while they are sweating away doing the hard stuff. They place all your items and once done, they take all the packaging with them to their dump trailer and pay disposal fees to dispose of everything.
Note: if you’re working with an interior designer, white glove delivery is standard practice with a full service project. In the world of retailers, this service may be an add-on. Of course if you choose not to pay for the additional service, your furniture is placed at your doorstep and you’re responsible for placing it, unpacking, assembly and disposal.
As you can see, there is tremendous value in these “silent” fees. If you’ve only purchased from a traditional retailer, you’ve never really seen the process from start to finish because these fees are hidden in the retail price.
So don’t be alarmed when working with an interior decorator; these fees are not something extra that has been created as an “option”. There are real people, running a real business, with significant operating costs behind these fees. It’s a service we cannot live without; literally we can’t get furniture to you without them!
