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The old saying, “buy cheap, buy twice”, couldn’t be truer with furniture for a care home environment. Contract and care home furniture typically gets a lot higher use than furniture in a residential property which ultimately means that the furniture could potentially wear out much quicker.
Common problems with choosing a low-cost supplier
Poor quality products
We know this isn’t true in every case but buying cheap often means that the quality of the product isn’t as high as it should be.
When furniture is mass-produced to keep the cost down, it is often then that the quality starts to drop due to manufacturers cutting costs and processes to ensure they are providing cheap products at scale.
Increased Costs
Just because the initial purchase is much more cost-effective does not necessarily mean you have brought a cheaper product. As we mentioned at the start of this article, “buy cheap, buy twice”.
If the quality of the products you are purchasing at a low cost is not up to standard, you will end up replacing these items much much quicker than you would have initially planned. Through our knowledge of the market, we tend to see care homes replacing their bedroom furniture, on average, around every 7 years. With low-quality products, we have seen care homes need to replace the furniture they have brought when it is only 1 – 2 years old!
Damaged Reputation
At the end of the day, if the furniture you are putting into your care home is not up to standard, it’s the reputation of your home that is on the line! As soon as residents start to complain about uncomfortable chairs and furniture just breaking, unfortunately, it comes back to your care home, not onto the company you brought it from.
Lost revenue
The cost of having to redo your rooms more frequently than usual and having to replace poor quality furniture will impact your room downtime which in turn impacts your revenue due to being unable to keep a resident in that room.
Whilst we know that buying cheap doesn’t always mean buying poor quality products, we have seen the above problems crop up again and again so we wanted to make you aware of the problems you could have with choosing a low-cost furniture supplier for your care home.
Still got some questions? Speak to our team using the live chat in the bottom right corner of this page or click the contact us button below.
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