Furniture Delivery Delays? Designers Find A Way
Couches, upholstered beds, rugs and light fixtures can take up to a year to arrive.
4 min
“I’ve had babies in less time than it took for me to get this damn chair,” my mother observed to my father, who knew better than to engage.
For everyone waiting for furniture delivery these days, it feels like the 1960s all over again. Thanks to the pandemic, the supply chain has been tangled up in knots over the past year and a half—and it has become routine to wait for many months for furnishings.
“Two-thirds of all goods trying to come into this country are coming in really late,” said furniture industry analyst Ray Allegrezza, executive director of the International Home Furnishings Representatives Association in High Point, N.C. “I’ve never seen anything this crazy—and it’s not going to get better any time soon.”
Of course, far worse things happened during the pandemic. “It’s just furniture,” said Ali Budd, an interior designer in Toronto. “That’s what I remind people.”
Ms. Budd said that even getting the simplest things is a challenge. “Getting a stone slab right now is like the Wild West. You show up and have to be ready to buy if you don’t want to lose the slab,” she said. “Everything is selling and people won’t hold things, sometimes not even for 24 hours.”
Why is the home décor industry being hit so hard by supply chain problems?
Home Furnishing Pros Explain
“It was a perfect storm,” Mr. Allegrezza explained. “There’s a higher-than-normal demand for home goods because everybody who was forced to stay in place during the pandemic realized they hated their sofas. Meanwhile the companies in Asia that make furniture had shutdowns. Ports everywhere are clogged, so ships can’t find a spot to unload, and when they finally do, there aren’t enough crane operators to unload the containers. Also, the trucking industry has a shortage of drivers, because a lot of them decided to retire in recent months.”
Worsening the perfect storm was actual bad weather. Winter 2021 storms in Texas and Louisiana shut down two major factories that manufacture chemicals used to make foam padding for sofas and chairs. “The delays are so bad that I had a client recently who needed a bed for a guest room, and I said, ‘Maybe don’t get an upholstered bed,’” said Michelle Gage, an interior designer in Philadelphia.
Manufacturers and retailers say it’s difficult to predict when furnishings will be delivered. “We have a container of rugs coming from Morocco that was delayed for weeks in Barcelona—with no real explanation—so we gave all the customers who purchased them a 10% discount to try to assuage the anger,” said Ben Hyman, chief executive of Revival Rugs in Oakland, Calif.
“We had 200 or 300 customers waiting for a woven-wire chandelier that was shipping from India and was expected in four to five months,” said Brownlee Currey, chief executive of Currey & Company in Atlanta. “It ended up being nine or 10 months. We kept ordering more meanwhile, and when they finally sent them, we got an enormous shipment.”
The bad news is that the situation isn’t going to get better soon: “The pundits are saying maybe 2023,” Mr. Allegrezza said.
The good news? Interior designers are coming up with creative workarounds.
“I’m getting more things custom made by local craftsmen—things like small side tables and upholstery pieces—because then you don’t have to worry about shipping,” said Courtney Sempliner, an interior designer in Port Washington, N.Y., who I phoned for advice. “We’re fortunate to have a lot of local mom-and-pop craftsmen in Brooklyn, Queens and upstate.”
“Who are some of your favourite go-to suppliers?” I asked.
“Sorry, I can’t share my sources—it’s too dangerous, because I don’t want them to be overwhelmed,” Ms. Sempliner said. “But here are other tips: Buy floor samples from showrooms. Or reupholster something you already own—the wait time is much shorter.”
Ms. Gage, the interior designer in Philadelphia, said a quick way to shave off weeks of wait time is to eschew custom fabrics. “Where in the past we might have picked a custom fabric for a sofa and waited for the fabric to get shipped from the manufacturer, now we choose a stock fabric for a sofa,” she said.
Other strategies: If you are shopping online and see that an item you want is in stock, “order it immediately. Don’t want until the next day, because who knows if it still will be available,” said Ms. Budd, the interior designer in Toronto.
One-of-a-kind vintage wooden furniture from sites such as 1stdibs, Chairish and Etsy are another option. “Vintage coffee tables and consoles are good because if they are high-quality pieces, they retain their value—just be sure you ask the seller for a lot of pictures taken from every angle to ensure that there’s no damage,” said Joy Williams, an interior designer in Chicago.
The main thing is to keep some perspective. It’s just furniture.
In my mother’s case, nine months after she ordered her rocker, the delivery man—the poor delivery man—finally arrived. On the appointed day, all four of us children gathered around his hand truck, expecting a thrill like Christmas morning.
With a flourish, the delivery man unwrapped the package—to reveal a chair upholstered in the wrong fabric. It was another nine months before they got it right.
Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal, Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: October 26, 2021.
Copyright 2020, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. LEARN MORE
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
4 min
The marketplace has spoken and, at least for now, it’s showing preference for hybrids and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) over battery electrics. That makes Toyota’s foot dragging on EVs (and full speed ahead on hybrids) look fairly wise, though the timeline along a bumpy road still gets us to full electrification by 2035.
Italian supercar producer Lamborghini, in business since 1963, is also proceeding, incrementally, toward battery power. In an interview, Federico Foschini , Lamborghini’s chief global marketing and sales officer, talked about the new Urus SE plug-in hybrid the company showed at its lounge in New York on Monday.
Lamborghini
The Urus SE SUV will sell for US$258,000 in the U.S. (the company’s biggest market) when it goes on sale internationally in the first quarter of 2025, Foschini says.
“We’re using the contribution from the electric motor and battery to not only lower emissions but also to boost performance,” he says. “Next year, all three of our models [the others are the Revuelto, a PHEV from launch, and the continuation of the Huracán] will be available as PHEVs.”
The Euro-spec Urus SE will have a stated 37 miles of electric-only range, thanks to a 192-horsepower electric motor and a 25.9-kilowatt-hour battery, but that distance will probably be less in stricter U.S. federal testing. In electric mode, the SE can reach 81 miles per hour. With the 4-litre 620-horsepower twin-turbo V8 engine engaged, the picture is quite different. With 789 horsepower and 701 pound-feet of torque on tap, the SE—as big as it is—can reach 62 mph in 3.4 seconds and attain 193 mph. It’s marginally faster than the Urus S, but also slightly under the cutting-edge Urus Performante model. Lamborghini says the SE reduces emissions by 80% compared to a standard Urus.
Lamborghini’s Urus plans are a little complicated. The company’s order books are full through 2025, but after that it plans to ditch the S and Performante models and produce only the SE. That’s only for a year, however, because the all-electric Urus should arrive by 2029.
Lamborghini
Thanks to the electric motor, the Urus SE offers all-wheel drive. The motor is situated inside the eight-speed automatic transmission, and it acts as a booster for the V8 but it can also drive the wheels on its own. The electric torque-vectoring system distributes power to the wheels that need it for improved cornering. The Urus SE has six driving modes, with variations that give a total of 11 performance options. There are carbon ceramic brakes front and rear.
To distinguish it, the Urus SE gets a new “floating” hood design and a new grille, headlights with matrix LED technology and a new lighting signature, and a redesigned bumper. There are more than 100 bodywork styling options, and 47 interior color combinations, with four embroidery types. The rear liftgate has also been restyled, with lights that connect the tail light clusters. The rear diffuser was redesigned to give 35% more downforce (compared to the Urus S) and keep the car on the road.
The Urus represents about 60% of U.S. Lamborghini sales, Foschini says, and in the early years 80% of buyers were new to the brand. Now it’s down to 70%because, as Foschini says, some happy Urus owners have upgraded to the Performante model. Lamborghini sold 3,000 cars last year in the U.S., where it has 44 dealers. Global sales were 10,112, the first time the marque went into five figures.
The average Urus buyer is 45 years old, though it’s 10 years younger in China and 10 years older in Japan. Only 10% are women, though that percentage is increasing.
“The customer base is widening, thanks to the broad appeal of the Urus—it’s a very usable car,” Foschini says. “The new buyers are successful in business, appreciate the technology, the performance, the unconventional design, and the fun-to-drive nature of the Urus.”
Maserati has two SUVs in its lineup, the Levante and the smaller Grecale. But Foschini says Lamborghini has no such plans. “A smaller SUV is not consistent with the positioning of our brand,” he says. “It’s not what we need in our portfolio now.”
It’s unclear exactly when Lamborghini will become an all-battery-electric brand. Foschini says that the Italian automaker is working with Volkswagen Group partner Porsche on e-fuel, synthetic and renewably made gasoline that could presumably extend the brand’s internal-combustion identity. But now, e-fuel is very expensive to make as it relies on wind power and captured carbon dioxide.
During Monterey Car Week in 2023, Lamborghini showed the Lanzador , a 2+2 electric concept car with high ground clearance that is headed for production. “This is the right electric vehicle for us,” Foschini says. “And the production version will look better than the concept.” The Lanzador, Lamborghini’s fourth model, should arrive in 2028.
Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
