Pandemic Related Order Delivery Delays
If you are thinking about buying furniture in the next 6 months, the time to shop is NOW. As a secondary impact of the Covid Pandemic, the furniture industry, like many other industries, is experiencing product shortages, significant price increases, and much longer delivery times on orders. Most of our manufacturers and their component suppliers such as fabric mills were shut down for a month or more this past year, and again recently, because of Covid outbreaks. Bringing back their workforce and modifying their plants to provide safe working conditions in the post-Covid environment has taken additional time and will continue to reduce production rates. If you order now, we will of course honor that price even as we experience unanticipated 10% to 15% ocean freight surcharges from our manufacturers. But if you wait to order, or cancel and reorder, we and other stores will have to charge you based on current prices.
Consumers have also been spending more time at home, working, schooling, and just isolating, and they are seeing the need for new furniture. This combination of higher demand and lower supply has resulted in orders that used to take weeks, now taking months. Some products such as mattresses are also impacted because shortages of foams and the nonwoven fabrics used in their construction being required for use in producing personal protection equipment for health care workers.
We apologize for this situation and are doing everything that we can to expedite orders and will try to provide you with updated, and we hope, realistic delivery expectations. Most manufacturers have indicated that these shortages and delays may continue at least through the fall. Unfortunately, many furniture factories are also in areas where Covid has been more of a problem, and additional shut-downs are always possible. The earliest orders will get the fastest production,
We have implemented new procedures to check on overdue orders, and to have your sales advisor notify you of unexpected delays. If you have made a deposit on an order which has been delayed, we are always happy to refund your deposit until the product arrives. Please feel free to call us if you have any questions about an order or our inventory level of regularly stocked items.
Thank you for your understanding of these unexpected changes as we all work through this together.
Judy and Eric Blackledge (RETURN TO OUR HOME PAGE)