First time sofa buyer advice

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I'm looking to buy my very first sofa and thought I'd ask on here for a little bit of advice and anything I should look out for when buying.

I'm after a leather feel corner sofa with a budget of around 1000-1300. Not on the lookout for a quality one at that price that will last 6+ years but want one that can withstand moderate usage for at least 3 years.

So far, DFS seems my best bet for price and the fact I can walk into the store to test however I'm open to suggestions if anyone has a good alternative. The problem with DFS is they have a pretty bad rep with a lot of bad reviews, a lot of which I'm sure are the case of people more motivated to post a review after a bad experience than with a good one but it's enough to make me a little cautious when ordering from them.

Anyhow, anything I should be on the lookout when ordering from DFS? I rang up the sales number a few times and asked a number of questions to better prepare myself. Anyhow two things stand out in particular that I'm curious about, first off the leather upgrades they do for an extra 150-300.. how much of a difference do they make and is it worth buying any of them? They also said they do a £38 a year insurance thing, is this worth getting with them? For example, I have friends over for predrinking before we head out and one of us spills beer on the sofa and it leaves a stain, will they come and deal with that?

Finally, the one sofa I'm looking at from them is the Cruze which is just short of £2000. Now that's out of my budget but I'm tempted to wait for the summer sale which I believe starts in July to see if it gets lowered at all but there is also a website (sofaland) which from the picture offers the same looking sofa for just £775, is it safe to assume their one is going to be a much poorer quality or could it be DFS price gouging just in time for sale?

Any other advice any experienced people on here might think is useful for me to know?

Many thanks for your time.

teddysmum

Have a look at the online BHS sale . They have leather suites in your price range.

curiosity101

My best advice on buying a sofa would be to consider if you really truly want a brand new sofa or not.

Sofas are one of the most quickly depreciating items I've ever seen. Even more so percentage wise than most brand new cars.

You'll often find basically new sofas on ebay and the like for a fraction of the price. When you factor in hiring a 'man with a van' it's often still around 1/3 of the price if not even less.

Just a thought anyways.