Beware Restoration Hardware?
- October 18, 2016 by The Find in Inspiration,News
We have customers of all kinds here at The Find, and some of them are after what they call a “Restoration Hardware” look. If you’ve ever seen RH’s twenty-pound catalog or browsed one of their incredible showrooms, you can probably see why it’s a popular aesthetic. But is the quality worth the hefty price tag? Recently, we stumbled across some interesting reading about Restoration Hardware that we think is worth sharing.
“I am an interior design professional. I specify home furnishings for my upscale residential clients… My client that I purchased furniture for at RH was not satisfied with the quality of the furniture that was delivered to her home. The showroom has nice soft comfortable down sofas, but the delivered sofa was hard and filled with something that was very uncomfortable. The tables were stained a much darker color than the ones shown to us in the showroom. It seems to be a switch and bait system. The showroom wows you, but the furnishings delivered are a much lesser quality. Trade professionals may wish to take their clients to other home furnishing stores.”
“We purchased a pair of “high quality” standing swing-arm floor lamps based on marketing representations and the appearance of quality. $716.00 for two. Both arrived defective: the base was loosely attached to the standing part (pole), flimsy and wobbly. Careful inspection and an attempt to simply screw the pole to the base failed: the gap was so loose on one lamp – an inch of separation – that we could see the machine screw and nut assembly inside, but things were not properly attached. How embarrassing and shameful that RH would not inspect items prior to shipment.”
“I recently bought a Harmon Flushmount light fixture from Restoration Hardware. When it arrived I was dismayed to see how cheaply made it is, comparable to a $20 Home Depot item. While it looks attractive on the outside, the screw holes didn’t align, there was a light rust on one part of the interior, it was poorly designed in terms of installation and the quality of material was poor.”
Not good, but it gets worse. A blogger named Laurel Bern wrote a lengthy post comparing items available for purchase overseas to items on the RH website. They’re identical in almost every instance, and the mark-up is 3000%!
Bern notes that these questionable business practices may be catching up with RH, pointing to plummeting stock prices as of August of this year and unhappy rumbles in the designer world due to shoddy quality.
It’s hard to deny that the RH lifestyle seems truly fabulous. But is it all smoke and mirrors? A quick Google search brings up far more disillusioned RH shoppers than not, relating to both the quality of their merchandise and their customer service:
“And as much as I love the faux industrial lifestyle Restoration Hardware hocks, I can’t get behind a company with such shoddy customer service.”
Beware Restoration Hardware? Maybe so.
There are benefits to buying local, no matter what kind of design style you’re after. Shop at The Find for that RH aesthetic – and many others – without compromising on quality or service. We hope you’ll come in and see for yourself Thursday, Friday or Saturday.