All you never wanted to know about Freight, receiving, White-Glove Delivery, and Turn-Key Installation ;)

Have you spent too much time pondering questions like…

What is FREIGHT?

why isn't my shipping free like everywhere else?

What exactly is "Receiving & White-Glove Delivery"?

What does "Turn-Key Installation" mean?

In today's world of "free 2-day shipping", we sometimes forget that nothing is actually "free", and there are human hands doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work (hard work & heavy lifting). This comprehensive guide explains what the furniture delivery process looks like and what level of service you are paying for when you see those shipping, freight, and receiving/delivery fees.

First, at Inviting Interiors, we offer the most-favored client pricing, meaning significantly below retail. Everyone has to pay to get furniture from point A to point B. We don't disguise the costs and fees associated with shipping, freight, and receiving in those prices (which is how most retailers do it). 

So what does this process entail?

When we purchase furniture directly from a manufacturer that furniture ships to via FREIGHT service (a 56' semi-truck brings it across the country) & it is calculated at a much lower rate than, say, UPS or FedEx. For example, an average sofa might be somewhere around $180ish (not a bad price to drive that sofa across the country)

Freight line carriers are the only method manufacturers ship furniture. This is the ONLY way your furniture leaves the factory - manufacturers do not FedEx a sofa to your doorstep. Freight transport can take a few days to a few weeks and may include a truck change at a depot.

Those large semis can only drop their goods at a Receiving Warehouse, a place with appropriate insurance, a loading dock, a forklift, and a team of people to unload that truck.

The receiving warehouse then does the following:

• Unload the truck & inspect the packaging, any items with visible damage to the packaging will be photographed and logged or outright refused.

• All items are checked against the Bill of Lading

• Then logged into inventory and labeled so they can tell us everything about that piece and where it is located in the warehouse

• Every piece is carefully unwrapped, unboxed, or uncrated

• Thorough inspection for damage, imperfections, or defects under bright lighting

• They photo any damage or imperfections and notify us, so we can then work with the manufacturer to rectify any issues 

• Have any minor touchups taken care of at the warehouse

• Ensure all the parts are included and assemble anything that requires any assembly

• Approved furniture is then re-wrapped, re-boxed, or re-crated. If the packaging isn't sufficient, they will blanket wrap instead. It can take two guys 30 minutes to blanket-wrap one piece from start to finish.

• Finally, re-labeled and stored until we are ready for your installation.  

What does it take for an operation like this to run?

Ours has a 10,000 sq.ft. warehouse with another 5,000 sq. ft. of storage racks, several forklifts, a 26' box truck with lift gate, a handful of 16' enclosed trailers, a hydraulic dump trailer, two long vans, inventory management software, 400 heavy-duty moving blankets, miles of packing material & tape, hundreds of protective booties & latex gloves, a team of detail-oriented, strong, well-trained, hard-working guys… and a partridge in a pear tree! (never mind rent, insurance, payroll, and workman's comp) – this is not a cheap operation to run.

The fun part comes next! Your delivery and installation of furniture!

When enough items have arrived to warrant at least half a day of delivery, I will coordinate a date with the warehouse and movers. I send them a complete list of the items we want in this delivery, and any additional info so they know what to expect. I will pre-arrange hanging when there are mirrors or art, as they are a potential disaster when un-wrapped and left leaning against a wall for even a day.

• The warehouse will locate and pull your beautiful brand-new furniture from storage and load it securely into the box truck, trailer, or both. This will take at least two guys, the forklift, and some serious experience, planning, and muscle. It can take as much as 5 hours to load the truck with a large order. They have a painstaking process to ensure your furniture is not damaged on this last leg of the journey.

• Then they hit the road and patiently drive-thru traffic and keep their cool around reckless drivers 

• Once at your home, they start to unload the truck and un-wrap all of the furniture

• They wear protective booties while in your home and delicately handle your new furniture to ensure they don't get anything dirty/cause damage to your walls while they are sweating away doing the hard stuff

• They patiently place furniture & rugs, sometimes over & over, while being directed by a bossy designer who wants everything in just the right place. And yes, we often ask them to remove all the furniture they just placed, so we can have them move a rug 4 inches. And they never complain, at least not in front of you ;) 

• They go back outside in the weather and reload their truck with sometimes hundreds of pounds of cardboard and packing material. And get this -THEY TAKE IT AWAY WITH THEM! Money well spent, am I right? And you're thinking POOF! Just like magic, it's all gone! But no.  

• They drive it back to their warehouse, where they will transfer it all to their dump trailer and tie it all down for safety. 

• They make at least a couple of trash runs a week to the local dump with hundreds of pounds of waste and recycling. Each one takes at least 3-4 hours from start to finish (more man & payroll hours). And THEN, they have to pay dump fees to dispose of everything!

So when you see the fees for freight, shipping & receiving/delivery, please know these are real people running a real business with high operating costs, and it's a critical service we cannot live without.  

Literally, we could not get your furniture to you without them.

If they do all that, what is this "Turn-Key Installation" that you do then?

Once we've all arrived, I review the spaces and manifest with the crew. We discuss the floor plan, where to put protective runners, and in what order things will relocate, unload, finish assembly and install.

And all the while they are unpacking, I'm running around making sure your space is ready for them:

• collecting any remaining possessions of yours to tuck out of the way

• swiffering before the pad and rug goes down

• sticking felt pads on the bottom of feet

• placing rubber dots under glass plates/shelves

• leveling table tops and lampshades

• removing protective plastic/tags/adhesive

• lint rollering styrofoam beads/fuzzies

• steaming out wrinkles

• installing the perfect size, Kelvin, and wattage lightbulbs

• adding dimmer switches on every possible light

• connecting extension cords that are the right length and color

• wrangling all wires and clipping them up out of sight

• wiping off fingerprints/smears

• putting your possessions back in their place so you can find them

• and much, much, more
  

  When we leave you to enjoy your new space, you can walk in, sit down, turn on a light, put your glass down, and put your feet up.

    Nothing left to do but enjoy your home.