Online Church Furniture Shopping – 3 WARNINGS!

Going on a Price Shopping Charade: What do we mean by this? Well, we see churches devote hours and hours searching the Internet to see who has the lowest prices on products like church chairs they are looking for. What they may not know is how the products they are looking at are being marketed. For example, one large importer has thousands of products in stock in huge warehouses. They then establish multiple retail outlets as a part of their strategy. Each of the retail outlets have websites that are designed to make them seem like an independent entity when in fact they are all working literally out of the same office complex. One website may offer free shipping with their products but have a higher price point, while another may have a lower price but have a shipping calculator to add shipping. A church can go back and forth among these entities believing that there is actual healthy price competition taking place, when in fact all the sales ultimately go to the same entity. The church believes they found the best price among many competing companies though that was in no way the case!

Accepting the Claims of Companies Portraying Themselves as Manufacturers: This is one we see more of each year. With the ease of importing products from offshore, also has come the ability for companies to portray themselves as manufacturers when they are not! Here is how this can happen. A company from China contacts a United States company and asks them if they want to carry their products. Part of the offer is that the Chinese Company is willing to “private label” what they are producing. For example, Chinese Company ABC contacts five different companies in the United States. All five agree to sell the church chairs Chinese Company ABC is producing. The first company decides to call their church chair the “Regal”, the second company decides to call their church chair the “Ultimate”, the third company decides to call their church chair the “Classic”, and on it goes. But when all is said and done, the same church chair is being sold by five different companies under different names with all portraying themselves as the manufacturer of those church chairs! And churches deciding between the “Regal” and the “Classic” in our illustration do not understand they are in fact the same chair!

Not Investigating the Warranty Fine Print: Every month we work with churches who have experienced a problem with their church chairs and find out the warranty that sounded so great when the chairs were being sold them is actually not so great! When a church is pursuing a church chair purchase, they will hear terms like “Lifetime Warranty” and “800 Pound Weight Limit” and on it will go. But when they experience a problem with their chairs, they may hear things like, “Well, send all the chairs back to us at your expense and we will evaluate as to whether your issue is covered by our warranty. Remember, it is totally our call in determining if the issue you have is covered by our warranty!” We cannot stress enough, obtain an actual copy of the warranty certificate, study it closely, ask questions, and request testimonies from churches where the warranty was actually honored! For many church chairs, you will find such testimonies are in short supply!