Buying Office Furniture, Web or Retail?

When you shop for office furniture you have a basic choice to make about where to buy. In the past, the default option might have been the local office supply store or department store. Today, it isn't just music or movies or even computers that are bought online. Furniture, too, is an option.

The advantages of buying office furniture in a brick and mortar establishment are obvious. You get to see the furniture first hand, making it easy to judge size, color and other factors.

But the disadvantages should be equally obvious. You have to take time away from the home office for shopping. That cuts into your work day. You have to consume gasoline, no small expense these days. Then, even if you buy, you still have to find a way to get the item home. Depending on the item, that can range from trivial to impossible.

There was a time not too long ago when no one would have considered buying a pair of shoes on the web. There was too little useful information and too much risk. Today, with software that sizes your foot exactly you can sometimes get a better fit from an Internet vendor than a retail store.

Likewise with office furniture, the information available online today far outweighs what you're likely to get in any store. Salespeople are rarely experts in the things they sell today. When shopping online you can get technical information from multiple sources.

You also get user's manuals, diagrams, how-to instructions for assembly and more. That is the sort of reference material that, in days past, you would have to purchase the item to obtain. Now, you can get it before you ever buy. That helps you judge ease of use or assembly and more before you invest.

There's one aspect of that information you can almost never get in a retail scenario, either: reviews. On odd occasions you might have a valuable recommendation from a friend or associate. Today, thanks to a trend popularized by Amazon but now used by hundreds of places online, you can scan through reviews from real buyers.

Those buyers might be anywhere in the world, giving you a good mix of attitudes and backgrounds. A percentage are clueless. Many know more much than any salesperson you have ever met. With that additional insight you can shop with confidence.

Delivery problems are a thing of the past, too. FedEx, UPS and other carriers today deliver everything from computers to king-sized beds with ease, often for free. You might think the delivery cost was built into the price, but it isn't necessarily so. If they have to deliver to a store, it often costs no more to deliver to you. Delivering a monitor, an office chair or even a desk represents no problem even for those who have an office in rural areas.

Weigh the pros and cons for yourself of shopping at a retail store versus using an online office equipment vendor. You might decide never to leave your desk again.

Find office furniture at eBay.