What can I say? This is a great spot for getting your furniture and household items. They supply everything - sofas, suites, wardrobes, tables, mirrors, mats, etc., and have a separate shop just a few doors away which is a bedroom showroom, and is used exclusively for beds.
They always have special offers, whether its discounts on furniture or free fitting or free delivery... there's always something. As an independent retailer it's stood the test of time. People who like to spend big money on furniture tend to go to Boucher Road. People who want quality furniture that's good value go to this place. Yes, you may find the odd bargain on a coffee table in Ikea, but there are several reasons I prefer Direct Furniture to Ikea:
a) Ikea is a very inhospitable place, and you seem to have to walk through the entire place via some type of ingenious labyrinth one-way system to get out (I went in one Saturday and couldn't find my way out til Monday, although I was relieved to get out without being devoured by a minotaur)
b) Ikea does some very annoying things, like have prices on their wardrobes that say something like 'final' price or 'total' price. After this, I discover that this doesn't include the handles or, in some cases, the pole for hanging things on. Perhaps my definition of final price differs from theirs, but my wardrobe is definitely neither final or total if I can't open it because it has no handles. Maybe they're like the doors in that film "What Lies Beneath", where you just have to reach towards the doors and they open...
c) you get personal service in Direct Furniture. You go to Ikea and it's different people working all the time, relying on a handbook of policies to deal with returns, discounts, etc. In direct furniture, it's the same people all the time. Say you go in one day, having been in the previous week. The item you wanted is out of stock and, not being in the furniture business or having any descriptive powers to speak of, you can't accurately describe it. "I was talking to that sales person there about it" will result in the mystery being solved in no time. It's the same 5 or 6 staff all the time, and they'll remember you. Of course, once you enter the premises you implicitly agree to forfeit your name - people who only go in once in a while will be reborn, and given new names like "you're the fella that was in the other day looking the pine wardrobe". Customers always appreciate when someone remembers them, for whatever reason!
Finally, if you're going to buy a wardrobe and decide that one could go in the other room as well (or you have a wife who, inexplicably, seems to believe that a nuclear holocaust is imminent, and that it's best to stockpile as many clothes as possible on a weekly basis, lest all clothes shops within a 400 mile radius be nuked in the very near future) bring your wallet with you and you might get a deal on the two of them for cash. Maybe...
Good value, quality products, and excellent personal service make this the place for me every time. Sure, if i see a coffee table in Ikea for £7 (if that really is the 'final' price) and the advertisement comes with an instore map of where in the military compound I can get said coffee table, I'll take a run in, but apart from that it's Direct Furniture every time. read more
