10 Helpful Tips to Buy Furniture Online

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Tempted to buy furniture online during the lockdown? Never done it before?

Have no fear – I’ve become a pro at buying furniture online over the years, and will share everything I’ve learned to help you buy furniture online like a boss! I’ve bought coffee tables that are way too short, couches that are a bit too big, and a desk that was the perfect fit. Nearly everything in the below photo was purchased online (by me)!

My mistakes and wins are your learnings, so you can buy furniture online with confidence. I’ve made a list of 10 helpful tips for YOU to buy furniture online like a boss! Here’s what we’ll cover:

• Understand Your Needs (and wants)
• Measure, Measure, Measure
• Determine Your Budget
• Check the Specs
• Check for Scale
• Evaluate Quality
• Find the Best Price
• Examine Return Policy
• Select Shipping Option and/or Assembly
• Inspect & Enjoy!

1: Understand Your Needs (and wants)

Prioritize

Figure out what you really need in terms of furniture, and the function it needs to serve. If it’s more than one piece, then make a list of priorities (in order of urgency).

Next Consider Function

Who’s going to use this furniture? How durable does it need to be? What comfort level do you want? Or, can form be placed over function if it’s not a heavy-use item?

A lot of these functionality questions can help you decide what type of materials you need. For example, if you have small kids, white fabric dining chairs are probably a bad idea (trust me, it is!). Something darker or with wipeable fabric would be more appropriate.

If you want something to last a long time, you may want to steer clear of particle board and go for real hardwood construction.

Determine Your Design Style

After you find your style, make your vision board on Pinterest, Instagram, or a Google Image search, and look for examples of furniture online that matches your style. Even if the pieces are out of your price range, it will help give you something to try to mimic in a lower price range.

Insider tip: Use your design style as a descriptor when doing a search for your furniture item. For example, “Scandinavian coffee table” or “Mid-century modern couch.”

2: Measure, Measure, Measure

I would say this is the single most important step in buying furniture online. You won’t be walking into a showroom to get a feel for the height of a table, or how tall (or short) a chair is. So, you need to measure and check the product’s specs to make sure it fits and is proportional to other items in the room.

First, Measure your Space

First, you need to measure the space you want to place this furniture. This is to get a basic idea of maximum dimensions for your new pieces.

If you’re buying any kind of larger piece – make sure there is enough space around it for traffic flow. Apartment Therapy has a great article, Dimensions to Follow: Furniture Spacing Basics. This will tell you the minimum space you need around your dining table or coffee table, for example.

Next, Measure Adjacent Furniture

Next, measure the pieces of furniture that will be near your new piece. For example, if you are buying dining room chairs, measure your dining room table.

If you are buying a coffee table, measure your couch and armchairs. According to Freshome, a coffee table shouldn’t be lower than 1-2 inches from the cushion of your couch seat. I made this mistake myself:

I learned this the hard way when I ordered the above coffee table online from All Modern, and it was about 4 – 6 inches shorter than my couch seat! It looked tiny compared to my huge couch. It was on clearance at the All Modern Outlet, so no returns allowed!

I had to buy $30 of Nannarp furniture legs from IKEA to make it tall enough to be functional.

Also Measure Items Your Are Replacing

Make sure you measure your existing items if you are replacing them, so you can try to get something the approximate same size (or bigger/smaller if that’s what you want), just a different style or color.

Don’t Forget Your Doorways and Passageways

Finally, measure all doors, entryways, hallways, and stairways (or elevators!) the furniture must travel through to reach it’s final destination. Crate and Barrel has a quick guide on How To Measure Furniture for Delivery. This step is mainly if you are buying something online that is already assembled like a couch or mattress, since most online furniture comes with some assembly required.

3: What’s Your Budget?

This one is pretty self explanatory but super-important. You don’t want to waste your time looking for couches, tables, or chairs you simply can’t afford. A lot of times I actually need to shop for furniture online a little bit before I can set a realistic budget.

Keep in mind, smaller is generally cheaper. So, if you are looking at the lower end of price ranges, double check the product specs to make sure the item is big enough. More on specs next…

4: Check the Specs

Dimensions Are Key

Once you find the pieces you like online, look at the product specifications on the product details page and write down the dimensions. Make sure you are looking at the assembled dimensions, not the dimensions of the box that it comes in.

Make sure the new furniture fits in your space and will work with the scale of your other furniture.

Check the Materials

The product specifications or description will often reveal the materials of the item. If not, you can always call or email the online furniture retailer a question on what it’s actually made of.

Wood and Wood Products

For types of wood, The Stated Home Blog has a great post, Types of Wood for Furniture, that has an extremely thorough explanation of every type of wood or wood product commonly used in furniture.

The coffee table I ended up getting for my living room had to be a light colored wood. I ended up getting this coffee table from All Modern, and it had a pretty nice manufactured wood finish. A similar one can be found here.

I will say that furniture in the lower price ranges typically uses wood veneers which can chip off or peel, with age or if you get it wet. But if you’re not looking for it to last a lifetime – that may be okay.

I’m somewhat partial to IKEA as they have a lot of real wood furniture (like inexpensive pine) that you can easily paint down the road if you get sick of the color.

Upholstery Fabrics

A great article with tons of information about the most common types of upholstery fabrics is Fabric.com’s post on Picking the Perfect Upholstery Fabric. I have a little boy at home so have been looking for easily cleaned upholstery like wipeable faux leather, dark fabrics, and easy cleaning wood veneers.

Check the Color (then check again)

Color can be super tricky when buying furniture online. Some ways around it include:

• View the photos and closeups of the color on multiple devices (for example on your laptop, then your mobile, and maybe on an iPad).
• Look at the reviews if anyone uploaded photos of the piece inside their home.
• Read the reviews to see if anyone comments on the color, if it came in lighter/darker than expected.
• Get a swatch – If the online retailer has a physical store, go in and check it out or ask them directly for a swatch of the fabric you like.

5: Check for Scale

There are a couple of ways to check for scale – meaning how the new piece will look relevant to other nearby pieces.

One way to check scale is to use painters tape or masking tape and tape out the dimensions on the floor in the room where it will go. This will give you an idea if it fits and if traffic can flow around it.

Another way to check for scale is to draw out a floorplan to make sure everything fits (for details, go to my post, 7 Simple Tips to Create a Floorplan. To sketch our your floorplan, you can use pencil and paper, or try a free online app like Room Planner.

The last way to check for scale is quick and dirty. I simply take a tape measure and measure out the product’s dimensions next to the adjacent furniture and imagine it being there. You could use cardboard boxes too, to get a good visual of how it will look.

I learned about scale when looking for an end table to go with my new coffee table. I almost bought below Sauder North Avenue Side Table from Wal Mart. It was super cute, very modern, and the price was amazing at less than $45!

Before I hit the “buy” button, I checked the product specs. It measures 15″ x 15″ x 20″ high. I measured my couch, the arm of the couch was 26″ high. So, this table would be 6″ lower than the arm of my couch – not very useful when you want to try to put your drink down somewhere.

The general rule, according to Apartment Therapy, is to have the side table around the same height as the arm of your couch.

Bottom Line: Make sure you check for scale before you hit the “buy” button when buying furniture online!

6: Evaluate Quality

Question: How Can You Determine Quality When Buying Furniture Online?

Answer: Reviews & Personal Evaluation

Read Reviews

One of the major benefits of buying furniture online is you can often find numerous product reviews online, to inform your buying decision. Read BOTH the good and bad reviews to see the pro’s and cons of each.

Once I find a piece of furniture online that I like, I often put the exact product name into Google and add the word “reviews.” Then I can try to find the item on other websites to find even more reviews (and do some price comparisons too!).

Personal Evaluation (if possible)

Another option is to buy from stores offering both online and brick-and-mortar stores. This way you could actually go into the store to try and find the item you like to see how it feels and looks. Then, you could always wait until they have a big holiday sale, buy the furniture online, and have it delivered to your door.

Alternately you could try to find someone who owns the exact piece of furniture you are looking at. The best place for that is probably some of the interior design groups on Facebook, or if a blogger has posted a review of the item, you could always email them a question.

7: Find the Best Price (including shipping)

Start with a Google Search

Finding the best deal on Google is fairly easy if you are looking for a specific piece, but can be harder if you are open to any manufacturer or color. Google Shopping is a great option here, but a lot of times Amazon is left out from the Google search results.

Wait for Holiday Sales

Another tactic to finding the best price is patience. A lot of furniture stores and big box stores like Target will have sales around nearly every major holiday. If you can wait, start checking online furniture retailers for sales on holiday weekends.

Sign Up for Their Email List

A lot of online furniture stores offer discounts for signing up for their email marketing list. This is usually a pop-up on their site, or a newsletter subscription box.

Insider Tip: If you sign up for an account (or get on their email list) and put stuff in your cart, then you may get some “abandoned cart” deals. Some retailers will email you offers for your item, or even special discounts to try to entice you to purchase what’s in your cart.

8: Check the Return Policy

Return policy is important so make sure you read the fine print. Anything custom is typically a no-return policy, so be careful.

If returns are allowed, some company’s require you pay a restocking fee, or pay for shipping back to them. Again, read the fine print.

One benefit of shopping for furniture online through a brick-and-mortar store is that you may be able to return the item by taking it to a physical store. Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot are great retailers with both online and physical stores where you can take most returns purchased online.

Always read the fine print for return info on the product listing page. Check out the Penny Modern Resource page for more modern and affordable sources to buy furniture online.

9: Select your Shipping & Assembly Options

A lot of online furniture stores offer free shipping if you order a certain dollar value worth of furniture. Others, who also have physical stores, offer free ship-to-store service, where you pick it up for free at your nearest store. Alternately, you would need to factor shipping costs into your budget, after you enter your zip code at the checkout.

Keep in mind, most furniture purchased online has some assembly required. If you are not handy, some online furniture retailers offer assembly and setup for a fee (it’s usually given as an option at checkout):

• Amazon and IKEA offer an add-on to buy assembly and set up service through a third party.
• Living Spaces offers full service delivery for an added fee.
• All Modern and Wayfair also offer assembly for an extra fee.

10: Inspect and Enjoy!

OK, you bought your new table, and now it’s time to sit back and relax, right?

It’s not over yet folks – make sure you do a thorough inspection of the furniture once it arrives. You want to make sure all the pieces are there, and there are no scratches, stains, or broken parts. If so, you should take photos and contact the store’s customer service ASAP and let them know.

Put your furniture together, and enjoy it. You worked hard to find the perfect piece now put it to use.

Insider Tip: Some companies may not want to take returns on damaged merchandise, so they may offer you a significant discount if you agree to keep a piece damaged in transit.

Recap:

So, you now know everything I know about buying furniture online! We went through so much, and covered:

Understanding your needs & wants, measuring everything, budgeting, checking the specs, checking for scale. Then we figured out how to evaluate the quality of furniture online, finding the best price, and reviewing the return policy. Lastly, we learned about shipping and assembly options, and how to inspect once you get your brand new furniture delivered.

Which one surprised you? Let me know in the comments below.

I hope that my mistakes will help you buy furniture online like a boss! You got this!

Next, I recommend checking out my post, How to Design a Room (for beginners), for a full step-by-step guide on getting a cohesive, modern look to your home.