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As I live in a small rural town in Wiltshire there’s not that much local choice when buying office furniture, so I inevitably end up scouring the web for what I want, but few of the office furniture related websites provide enough information, the pictures are normally poor quality and little information is supplied beyond the colour and price.
In light of that I was pretty impressed when I saw Saxen’s website, the images are good quality (and the enlarge does actually enlarge them), each product is shown with the available range of finishes and a wide choice of sizes (where appropriate). The site is easy to navigate with everything being nice and easy to find, even the huge number of ways to contact them which included just about every option short of smoke signals!
Just in case you can’t find what you’re looking for they offer live help on the website, although they did take a little while (about 5 minutes) to answer and I was queued while waiting. When I did get to chat to them the answers were prompt, accurate and helpful.
They offer FREE delivery which is a bonus – I hate finding what I want and then finding that the delivery charge makes an otherwise attractive offer unreasonable.
In summary a nice clean website, that is worth a look even if you don’t need office furniture as it nicely demonstrates how e-commerce should be done.
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This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
Being an office furniture retailer and being passionate about what I do. I recieve google alerts every morning from around the globe, you’ve guessed it….. office furniture. One alert directed me to your blog.
As a small established busness, I have over the past few months toiled with the idea of selling on line and have looked at various other sites within the UK and my direct competitors.
The main reason I haven’t jumped into on line selling, is that I have to have faith in the products I sell. The UK Market is flooded with ‘cheap Chinese imports’ and that you cannot sell good quality items on line for the commercial environment.
I’ve bought them for the showroom as I was missing out on business, sold them on, only to come back and haunt me. Even though I sold them for the intended application. I’ve made a few mistakes or should I say learning curves.
More and more companies including home workers are now looking at the supply chain and how sustainable the furniture is, factors also being considered are the durability and life span of the product before purchasing.
I not only blog on BT tradespace but have recently set up a blogger account which I’m finding a bit tricky at the moment.
http://jillsofficesolutions.bttradespace.com/
Chairs are extremely important – but if you must buy on line before demonstrating, is there any guarantee it’s going to be comfortable? No.
I see this sort of typical mistake being made on a regular basis, especially PC users who have used the wrong chair and desk for years, which has resulted in absenteeism from work and costing UK business. A chair needs to fit the user correctly.
My business is designed around the commercial and not the home office market. Although, with more and more people now running a business from home they too need educating about ergonomics.
Posting my own personal comments is not a criticism to any company that sells on line.
Jill,
Thanks for posting a shame you’re not a little nearer or I’d try and pop by and see what you’ve got to offer.
I set up an online office furniture company a few years ago and I disagree that it is not possible to sell decent quality furniture online, though the market is extremely competetive and profit margins are very low which can be good news for the purchaser.
Quality furniture can be sold online as long as it simple in design – or at least simple enough to be easily understood – the more abstract designer desking patterns are simply too complicated for customers to be able to work out what components they need.
Buyers should beware of companies who offer poor after sales service. My recommendation is to phone your potential supplier before purchasing to get the feel for the level of service they offer and how knowledgeable they are on the products they sell.
I sell both top end and discount office chairs online, although i turn loads more bottom end product there is a market in the high end office chairs.
I agree there are lots of companies out there with no experience and knowledge of there products and just act as a middleman, we have been a established office furniture business for the last 25 years so we can offer excellent customer service as well as incredible online prices.