What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Furniture

Haverwood Furniture, a medium-to high-priced manufacturer of wood furniture for bedrooms, living, and dining rooms, has just acquired Lea-Meadows, Inc. Lea-Meadows is a manufacturer of upholstered living and family room furniture. A decision now needs to be made concerning the selling approach. Haverwood has 3 options:

Most of the competitors offer custom furniture in specific styles or with limited choices. Doe Furniture needs to emphasize the custom nature of their work. They can offer to build specific pieces to order based on a picture a customer brings in, on the size and design of a room, or a customer may suggest the functionality needed for a piece and a piece will be designed for them.

The household wood furniture industry is healthy and growing. Total industry sales in 2007 were estimated to be $31 billion at manufactures prices. Three categories of furniture divide the industry. First upholstered furniture which makes up 50% of sales, Secondly wood furniture at 40% of the industry market share which has grown 2.5% in 2007 and is projected another 4% in 2008, this second category includes dining room and bedroom furniture. Third and last is the other category at 10% this includes ready to assemble and casual furniture. Haverwood has established themselves as a medium to high priced furniture company through 1,000 carefully selected high

Soda fountain bar 2 pizza ovens Salad and pizza/dessert bar Approximately 100 square foot commercial refrigerator 2 cash registers 6 video game vending machines Management office with desk and lower-priced laptop computer Staff lunchroom equipment such as microwave, sink, cupboards and refrigerator 20 four-seater tables with chairs Busing cart for transporting dirty dishes from the dining area to the dishwashing area 140 sets of dishes, including cutlery and drinking cups Commercial dishwasher Miscellaneous cooking and food handling equipment like trays, lifters, spoons, pots

Housefriend’s is a homewares retailer specialising in bathroom fittings, bedroom fittings, mirrors and decorative items. Housefriends caters to the furnishing market for new and renovated dwellings. Currently, a chain of eight stores are situated around the greater area of each state’s capital city.

There are a wide array of one and two bedroom floor plans with fine styling throughout, which includes granite countertops, wood-style flooring and modern lighting throughout the apartment. There is a washer and dryer in every apartment and the kitchen has an island and bar. There are ceiling fans throughout and energy efficient appliances that include

Big Lots have items such as furniture, food products, home decorations and household accessories, toys and gift items, as well as electronics and accessories. Big Lots customers may purchase home furnishing items such as living room groups, dining room tables, beds and mattresses. They also care household items for the kitchen and bathroom. Big Lots also care seasonal items such as lawn and garden furniture, as well as Christmas and other holiday decorations (Form 10-K, (2017).

The services and products offered by IKEA provide value to its customers in various ways. For one, the products and services are very affordable. The products and services are not priced highly and therefore, the average customer can enjoy them. At the same time, the products are of high quality. From IKEA’s slogan “low prices but not at any price”, it is clear that the company prices its products lowly but that does not mean that the quality is compromised. IKEA satisfying its customer’s needs through providing them value for their money as they provide quality products that will last for a long time, and at affordable costs. The fact that the company has set the minimum acceptable standards for its wood, implies that it is also keen on quality and on the environmental impact of its action of making furniture ( Edvardsson, Enquist & Hay, 2006).

Housefriend’s is a homewares retailer specializing in bathroom fittings, bedroom fittings, mirros and decorative items. Housefriend’s caters to the furnishing market for new and renovated dwellings. Counting with a chain of eight stores situated around the greater of each state’s capital city.

The classic trends can also be seen at the Marlo Furniture. People can easily select their living room accessories from several designs

Most of the home products are essential for having a good life style. For example, there is no substitute for: a sheet, a pillow, a blanket, a desk, lamp etc., and the same store will offer

-For HomeHelp it is the opportunity to ally with Woodmere to create a time based logistics to improve product availability in stores while reducing overall inventory. By Allying with a furniture manufacturer we have

IKEA is considered to be a low cost, high quality producer in the furniture industry, therefore it is important to

As IKEA stores are located away from the urban areas, many customers may only patronize the stores during weekends. Hence, the store may be relatively quiet during the weekdays and highly packed with shoppers over the weekends. In the case of IKEA, although it adopts the self-service concept in their stores, it actually still maintains a high level of contact with their customers. To ease and facilitate consumer’s shopping, IKEA provides catalogues, measuring tapes, shopping list and pencils. In addition, IKEA stores are designed to have a ‘family shopping experience’ with customer services and facilities such as a restaurant, day care facilities and a Swedish shop. Parents can leave their kids in a supervised play area, or keep their children with them in pushchairs provided (Slack, Chambers and Johnston, 2007). The key point about IKEA is that it is different to the rest of its industry. In typical furniture stores similar products are grouped together and the final delivery of products to customers may take several weeks.

Ikea's mission is to offer a wide range of home furnishing items of good design and function, excellent quality and durability, at prices so low that as many people as possible can afford to buy them (www.ikea.com)