I have found a lounge suite I like from Harvey Norman and was wondering if I could buy direct from manufacturers. It is made by Berwick and exclusive to HN. Not coming up oñ a Google search
Buying furniture direct from manufacturers
spring89 on 17/05/2019 - 19:33
Comments
To save money obviously
Well yes that is a given seeing we are on ozbargain right? What im leading onto say is that it is not as lucrative for manufacturers to sell direct to individuals who will invariably account for very little profit for their business venture. So there is no great incentive for many manufacturers to sell direct to individuals.
Simply put. Would i rather sell a single couch which cost me $500 to make to an individual for $800. Or HN buys 1000 units of the same couch for $700 each and in turn sells them for $1000 each.
Sure one item made $300 profit selling to an individual and they saved $200 buying it from HN. However HN just got me $200k for selling them 1000 couches.
It does happen. Jamel furniture in Perth: HN sell their furniture but if you have an ABN Jamel will sell direct to you, saving you a fortune.
@spring89: Not saying it doesnt happen. Just saying that if its so lucrative every manufacturer would be doing it. In reality it dont happen because its just not the lucrative in majority of cases.
Basically no, you're not the first person to think of cutting out the middle man. The manufacturer does not have the time and/or resources to sell individual items.
Exactly this. The manufacturer upon receiving say 1000 unit order from HN then buys the materials in bulk to save costs. They ain't got time to deal with individual order for essentially mass production furniture.
Oh sure there are made to order furniture makers all I can say about them is. They ain't going to be cheap.
Don't be so sure. I once saw a TV unit at a furniture shop chain (not HN), got friendly with the sales guy and hinted i'd like to do something on the side and wouldn't mind him making some coin too. He ended up getting me the unit himself from the manufacturer, delivered it to me personally and saved me over $500.
Try your luck, you may end up with a shady salesperson like I did. I didn't feel for the chain - they do well with their 200% markups with the other 99% of customers. Go, downvote away.
He ended up getting me the unit himself from the manufacturer, delivered it to me personally and saved me over $500.
I really doubt that he got it straight from the manufacturer, it's likely some sort of loose stock or "an extra one with the next order" type of arrangement. Either way, you didn't get it directly from the manufacturer, you got it off a shady guy who used his perks to get it.
You can from some suppliers (generally not for store specific furniture but for common furniture sold to multiple different stores definitely). Generally though it is only worth while if you buy a shipping container load worth. Friend bought 6 lounge sets (that's how many sets fit in the container) from Italy for about 40% of the cost as what they were in store. Sold the rest at about 60% of the store cost which covered the shipping cost and cost of his set.
Note this is only generally worth while for high cost furniture sets. If it is a cheap set it is unlikely to work out viable.
An example of this is Jamel furniture in Perth. HN sell their furniture but if you have an ABN Jamel will sell direct to you, saving you a fortune.
I have an ABN. I can assist your purchase from Jamel… for a fee of course.
The fee is exactly one fortune.
:-)
Genuine question. What are you hoping to achieve by buying this one item direct from the manufacturer?
I mean Harvey Norman could have said to them. Make 100 or even 1000 of these and give us a discount for buying this many.
The manufacturer is not likely going to extend you that kind of discount HN would get because of how many HN ordered from them.