Yes, Virginia, furniture does grow on trees

Your brand new table, buffet, and chairs are to-die-for-gorgeous in your dining room. Gleaming wood, subtly glistening hardware, and those sparkling glass inserts—breathtaking.

Up to 40 percent of all furniture requires touch-ups before it reaches your home.

Chances are your beautiful, pristine furniture arrived from the factory with perhaps a scratch, or a loose hinge, or possibly broken glass, or a crack in the wood, and wobbly legs. It’s worth remembering that furniture does, in fact, grow on trees. Wood, even hard woods like oak, maple, and cherry will scratch, dent and crack. Quite often furniture will need minor restoration before it ever gets to your home. When this happens it is no less new. It is repaired to new quality by technicians, using the same standards as were used when it was first built.

We don’t mean to burst your bubble but damage may happen to furniture before it reaches your home. You just don’t have to see it. Because furniture is often manufactured across the globe and then travels great distances to the customer, dozens of opportunities to disappoint the customer exist. These opportunities can happen at the manufacturing operation with defects and quality issues, through the supply chain and in the home stretch during the final mile preparation and delivery.

In fact, up to 40 percent of all furniture traveling from the manufacturer through the supply chain to the home delivery operation will need some level of “touch-up” before being delivered to the customer’s home, according to Steve Anderson, Vice President of Furniture Operations at Williams-Sonoma, Inc., the highly regarded furniture retailer that is home to such brands as Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, West Elm and Williams-Sonoma Home. Of the merchandise requiring touch-up, 80% is due to manufacturing standards acceptable in other parts of the world, but that are not at the level of expectation of the US customer. The other 20% is due to damage sustained in the supply chain in support of a global supply business model.

“When the furniture is unveiled in our customer’s home is what we call the moment of truth,” Anderson says. Delivering furniture that is damaged is completely unacceptable. So what does a retailer do faced with the reality of damage upon its product leaving the factory?

The best retailers know that damage is inevitable and they take pains to perform what is known in the industry as “deluxing” to each piece before it gets delivered to your home. Deluxing is the art of restoring a piece to its pristine condition: polishing out minor scratches, tightening loose parts, filling holes, performing stain or sealant touch-ups.

We talked to Anderson because Williams-Sonoma has a reputation for excellence. He threw some light on furniture damage and what steps retailers and delivery suppliers take to mitigate it so that when those pieces arrive in your home, you can experience the thrill of having made a great choice.

Anderson, a former U.S. Marine, has the two critical traits necessary to insure customer satisfaction in this final leg of your furniture’s journey to your home: 1) attention to detail and 2) responsibility for the product.
“Our mission is to make that moment one of total satisfaction for our customer.” The Williams-Sonoma team makes that a reality by inspecting and correcting any errors in the product before it goes on the delivery truck. “What might be considered acceptable to get out of the factory door, may not be acceptable to be in Mrs. Jones’ home,” he says.

That’s where deluxing adds great value. Getting the product perfect before it goes on the truck insures the merchandise will be welcomed into the customer’s home. “We go through every piece, and assembly,” he says, looking for those cracks, scratches and dents incurred during the process. “Then our drivers and loading dock team members inspect the piece and sign off before placing it on the truck,” he says. Each piece gets polished and restored to perfection before loading—whatever it takes. The driver that brings the furniture to your home must accept full responsibility for your furniture while it is in transit, Anderson adds. This mentality ensures careful, professional handling.

Putting in this extra effort before it leaves his facilities greatly reduces the chances of the product being rejected and the customer being disappointed. And that’s our goal: to ensure that you and your furniture live happily ever after.