Finally on to the chairs!

Well, amazing how I can ramble on before I get to the main point of this blog!

Chairs.

If you’re sitting in an office chair (whether at home or work) for hours and hours every day, don’t go down to the local Officestaplesdepotmax. Yeah, you can buy a chair down there for 50 bucks or something, but…. you get what you pay for! (poor english, I know!)

So, especially online, how can you gauge the quality of a chair?

Such a good question, most times, you can’t!

Far more often than not, you’re going to be shopping hit or miss. You might find reviews of a chair somewhere, but…. people generally only write reviews if they are unhappy with a chair, and then it’s not really the chair’s fault so much as the people who sold them the piece of….

You could ask the people you’re buying it from, but how honest are they really going to be?….

Most of them have never even seen the chair, any more than you have. To them it’s simply a picture on the internet as well! Let’s face reality. Most internet retailers do NOT stock the items they sell. You order the item, they order it from the factory who ships it straight to you- the e-tailer NEVER sees the item!

Most of the items I sell at SitBetter.com, honestly, I do not stock. However, I do have a 40,000 square foot warehouse/showroom, so I get to see a lot more than almost everyone. I have made trips to manufacturers, sat in the chairs they had available and reviewed them. I also have years of experience, myself and co-workers, in knowing the quality of manufacturer’s craftmanship, overall and with individual chairs.

One great example is one particular chair (well, more than one, but…. this is a good one).

This is the FL642 Faux Leather chair from Office Star.

I sat in this chair when I visited their warehouse in Ontario, CA and was immediately impressed by how comfortable the chair was. When I saw the price, I was even more impressed!

When I got back home, I immediately called the rep and told him to bring a sample down for everyone else to see. He did, and everyone else was impressed too!

Now, this chair feels good, but one bit of warning, it’s made from a leather which is infused with a polymer, making it more durable than normal leather, but losing most of the ‘breathability’ of normal leather. But at the price, it’s really worth it!

Oh heck, I’m not really here to sell you a chair (heck, had to try though!), just to demonstrate that I do know most of the chairs that I sell on (BCP- Blatant Commercial Plug!) SitBetter.com.

That being said… I still don’t know much!

So make sure you ask questions, but know what questions to ask!

What are the right questions? Here are some I ask customers:

1. What are you doing in the chair- Working on the computer all day long? One the phone? In and out of it all the time? Signing papers, meeting clients?

2. How much time do you spend in the chair- 4 hours, 8, 14?

3. Do you want it pretty, modern, leather, etc?

4. Do you have a budget? (almost a stupid question, eh?)

5. Do you want an ergonomic chair?

Asking those questions, and assessing how someone sits, I can narrow down pretty close what someone is looking for in a chair and get them that leather executive, inexpensive but sturdy ergo task chair, Big & Tall chair or ultra-modern Manager’s chair.

So the next posts, I’ll get into the different sorts of chairs and for what each might be used.