Sofa companies - the truth?

hiohaa

so...we're shopping around for a sofa....obviously.
i google 'csl sofas moneysavingexpert'
and 'scs sofas moneysavingexpert'

lo and behold a string of posts of people complaining about them.
So now im sceptical.

We went to SCS and found a sofa that looked and felt very nice. The leather seemed firm, the stitching seemed solid.

Ive seen a lot of bad reviews about CSL, though the sofas on the website look amazing.

What should I believe? Im skeptical about these 'bad reviews' for 2 reasons:

- surely only people with bad customer experiences are going to go online and talk about them - it might be a small % of the total number of people who have bought sofas.

- if these companies like csl are really THAT bad, i doubt they would have been able to expand enough to have multiple large stores and showrooms and survive, if every single sofa bought from them was terrible.

has anyone got any tips or techniques for working out what is a good quality sofa?
Has anyone got any other places to recommend? We live in the midlands, in between derby, leicester, nottingham, and birmingham.

Surely theres a decent sofa company somewhere in these 4 cities?
It seems like whatever relatively large sofa company i type in google, and add 'money saving expert' on the end, i get a load of posts talking about how bad they are.

cattie

If you can stretch to it, buy from a well established British company who build furniture in the traditional way that is built to last.

My lounge furniture is from Multiyork and has given me years of wear yet still as comfortable and as sturdy as the day it was bought. One benefit of Multiyork is that they retain the template of your furniture (which is made to order) and should you wish to change the tailor made covers at any time in the future, you can ask them to make you new ones from their extensive range of fabrics.

Their are still some good furniture companies out there and most of their trade comes from loyal repeat customers or word of mouth recommendations. They don't need to rely on expensive tv adverts to garner trade or to import their furniture from countries where cheap labour and materials are the norm.

dogsbody61

If you feel the need to buy from them make sure you pay the insurance if its leather and have it treated. Had mine 2 year or so and the colour is rubbing off in many places .They have a answer to every thing so they don't have to fix problems at there cost .
Its like dealing with a used car salesman back in the 70's only worse!!!

wallbash

If you buy from one of the quoted companies , at a VERY cheap price , you can't expect it to last for years . Multiyork selling much better BUT much more expensive sofa's you would want a longer lasting product .
I recently ( last week) had the webbing replaced on my Furniture Village sofa's after ten years. The restorer remarked after stripping down the back how well the frame was put together.I now expect at lest another ten years .

To sum up , buy a sofa for less than £500 expect it to need replacing within a few years.

daveyjp

I general a well built sofa will be very heavy.

Start at John Lewis to get an idea of why their sofas cost thousands and a shed sofa costs hundreds.

Racky_Roo

I agree with others. Frankly I don't want a sofa to last 10 years as I like to change my decor and furniture with it every few years so tend to buy from homebase etc but I know others want sofas to last forever. m&s have some really reasonably priced sofas lately -£600 each and I know theirs last for years and years from friends