When buying a new house, doing remodeling or if doing renovation, shopping for furniture and furnishings is essential. In traditional times, new furniture was bought by visiting a carpenter’s shop, or asking one to come to your house to make the furniture. As industrial era began, industries started making mass-produced low-cost furniture in bulk quantities. Then furniture and furnishings was showcased in an interior design showroom. The customers can feel, see and touch the products before buying it.
With the advent of new technology and computers, everything has now come online. One buy anything with sitting at home at their comfort on just one click. According to the survey conducted by Google (2012), there is a growing trend of online furniture shopping, with over 15 million people shopping for online furniture in a year. Online furniture shopping helps in saving the travelling cost that would have incurred. Online portals offer variety of products and flexible return policies, which have encouraged people to buy online.
If you’re contemplating whether visiting an interior design showroom vs online portal is best for you, we are here to solve your problem. We at Gharpedia, through this article aim to give you information on interior design showroom vs online portal, which is best for you?
Interior Design Showroom VS Online Portals
Here are things to consider when in doubt whether to buy from interior design showroom or online portal:
Experiencing the Product
Interior Design Showroom
Visiting a designer furniture showroom will allow to see and experience the product in person. You can touch the furnishings and take feel of them. This allows you to select the correct product as per your requirement.
Online Portals
When buying from an online portal, you cannot touch the material of the furnishing or the product. Although, the details of the product is listed on the website, without touching it is difficult to get the idea.
Visualization of Space and Furniture
Interior Design Showroom
When buying furniture or furnishings for home, visualization of space is an important factor. If you want a sofa for your house, it should perfectly fit the space that you have. Visiting an interior design showroom gives you better visualization of space. Visiting gives you a realization that the particular furniture will look good or not. This is also the case when selecting interior design styles. If you want to give a minimalistic design to your house, then viewing the product physically, will help you in making the final judgement.
Online Portals
When shopping online for furniture, viewing products on an online portal, it is difficult to visualize. Making the judgement whether the product will fit your required interior design style or not is hard when you are buying from online portals. If misjudgment of space occurs, the product you ordered, may not fit well in to the space. It may be oversized or undersized. Also the colours of furnishings in the online portals may not match exactly when you see them physically. The colours may not match the colour scheme of your home.
Speaking of interior design styles, check out our detailed guide:
Help from Expert
Interior Design Showroom
While buying furnishings or furniture for your home, you may get confused as there are a lot of variety of materials and styles available. One may require help in making the decision. You can easily get expert help when you visit furniture décor showroom. Experts are always there in an interior design showroom. You can ask any queries to them and they will help you instantly.
Online Portals
Getting help when shopping online for furniture is difficult. Usually there is no provision of expert help on the online portal. However, this is changing constantly. Now there are online portals, who provide chat box, for asking any query. You can ask your query and the expert from the other hand will response as per the response time of the website. Some portals are now also offering expert help via telephonic conversation, however the charges of the expert are to be bared by the customer. There is always an option of sending your query through e-mail. But this takes more time, as the experts may take few business days to respond to your query.
Variety of Interior Design Styles and Products
Interior Design Showroom
An interior design showroom has less variety of styles and products when compared with online portals. This is due to limitation of space. An interior design showroom can display or store limited stock. For more varieties one has to visit numerous interior design showrooms, which is a tedious and time consuming task.
Online Portals
There are a lot of variety of design styles and products in an online portal or virtual furniture showroom, as they are not physically displayed. Websites can cater a lot of products without any problem. Hence, you can find your desired product, by visiting one website only.
Installation and Assembly
Interior Design Showroom
Interior design showroom managers always offer more customer service. They offer installation and assembly of the product with minimal fees or free of cost. They will come and do the assembly or installation as you required. So there’s no need for you to worry about doing the installation on your own or hiring someone.
Online Portals
When doing online furniture shopping, the installation service is usually not provided or if they provide you have to pay extra charges. The products which are small and DIY friendly can be ordered online without worrying about the installation. But if you are not a DIY enthusiast or you do not have time to assemble the product on your own, then it is going to be a costly affair for you. You have to hire someone who can assemble or installed the product.
Customization
Interior Design Showroom
Customized products is a major advantage of buying products from designer furniture showroom. If you have an oddly shaped wall, and want to set up a wall unit, then customization is necessary. Getting customized products is easy when you visit interior design showroom. Some showrooms offer to come at your home and measure the exact size and dimensions of the space and then make the furniture or product accordingly.
Online Portals
Online portals offer products with standard sizes and dimensions. Standardized products are more in demand as compared to customized ones. Hence online portals offer standard products. Customized products are rarely available on online portals.
Flexible Return Policies
Interior Design Showroom
Showroom furniture stores do not have flexible return policies, because there is rarely any need to return the products. Generally when a customer visits interior design showroom, they will properly inspect the product and then buy it. Hence, there is less possibility of returning the product. Although, if such a case occurs, where one has to return the product, it is difficult when you are buying from interior design showroom.
Online Portals
Online portals offer flexible return policies. When shopping online for furniture, the customer cannot inspect the product physically. Hence there are chances of receiving damaged or faulty product. Sometimes colour change is observed in furnishings when received. The colour on website is different than the actual colour. So in such cases, online portals offer flexible return policies, if the problem is genuine.
Post Delivery Customer Support
Interior Design Showroom
When you purchase products from warehouse furniture showroom, you will get immediate help in case of any problem after the product is delivered. You just have to report the problem to them, and help is on their way.
Online Portals
Online portals rarely offer services after the delivery of the product. There are some portals who offer such services, but it takes time for help to reach you. First you have to call the customer care. A computerized voice will guide you and after some time, you will reach a customer care officer. After understanding your problem, the officer will send help to your house. Hence it will take time for help to arrive.
Advantages
Interior Design Showroom
- The main advantage of buying from an interior design showroom is that you can touch and experience the product yourself.
- You can get help from experts as they are always present in the showroom furniture store. You can ask them query directly and they will guide you to make a better decision.
- You can get better visualization of space when you visit interior design showroom. There is less room for misjudgment.
- People trust buying from an interior design showroom rather than online portal, as one can touch and experience. Also they offer hospitality to their customers.
- The sale staff will show you products according to your requirements. This will save a lot of time as you do not have to look each and every product.
- You can get customized products from an interior design showroom.
- Interior design showrooms provide good customer services. They offer services even after the product is delivered.
Online Portals
- When you buy from online portal, you save a lot of your time. You don’t have to travel anywhere; you can order products sitting at your home with just a click. This saves a lot of your time and effort.
- There are a lot of variety of products to choose from on a virtual furniture showroom. You can select from a wide range of products, at your own comfort.
- You can easily compared prices of different products available on different online portals, with just one click. There is no need of physical space, as the inventory is online.
- One can check the reviews of the products on online portals. People who have already bought the product write their experience about the product, which helps you in making a wiser decision.
You can also conduct a virtual interior design by using apps, check them out
Disadvantages
Interior Design Showroom
- To buy from warehouse furniture showroom, one has to take out time and visit the store during the day according to their timings. For some people it is difficult to take out time from their tight schedule.
- You cannot check the review of the product when you buy from interior design showroom. So, if you buy the product, you have to accept it. They have rigid return policies, and hence sometimes it is not feasible to return the product.
- For comparing prices of the product, one has to visit different interior design showrooms. This increases travel time and your efforts.
- Interior design showrooms have limited collection due to lack of space to accommodate huge collection of products.
- The furniture décor showroom can have large crowds and you may not be able to view the product properly.
Online Portals
- You cannot be sure of quality of products, when doing furniture store online shopping. The images on the online portals can also be deceiving.
- It may happen that the product you order online, when you received it may not fit the space or may not be the same product.
- Online portals rarely do customization. They offer only standard products and hence for custom products one has to visit interior design showroom.
- If you do not know what products you are looking for, it would take a lot of time for you to select the products. There are wide variety of products online, hence it could confuse you.
- Online portals do not offer expert help unlike interior design showroom. So if you have queries on what product to select, going to online portal will add more to your problem rather than solving it.
- Online portals usually deliver in selected cities and towns, hence for people in rural areas, it is essential to visit interior design showroom.
Final Thoughts on Interior Design Showroom VS Online Portals
Summing up, hope the above points have helped you in understanding the pros and cons of ordering product from an interior design showroom as well as online portal. The winner of the battle of interior design showroom vs online portal, solely depends on you. However, nowadays there is a trend of doing a blend of both fields. Branded companies now offer online portals as well as interior design showroom. Hence, one can read about the product online and then see for itself in the showroom before buying it. Thus, one can advantages of both visiting an in interior design showroom as well as online portal in this way.
Make sure to read more articles:
Top 7 Tips on How to Get the Best Deals When Buying Furniture Online
Know the Difference Between Living Room’s Interior Design and Décor!
9 Scandinavian Interior Design, Home Decor Tips, Tricks & Hacks: Articulating an abode through Simplistic Eccentricity
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