Caveat Emptor!

You did it! You found a great deal on your outdoor furniture after weeks of searching the internet for the best possible price. You're going to have the beautiful furniture that you have always dreamed about.

You chuckled to yourself as you thought about your pleasant but none too hip neighbors who had just received their outdoor furniture from a brick and mortar showroom. Sure, you had to wait a couple of weeks to get your product but that was mitigated by the fact that you got a free delivery through the e-tailer. You don't need white glove service - curbside is just fine. What's the big deal? You don't mind placing your new furniture in the backyard yourself.

Then you wait.

...and wait.


...and wait.

Eventually, two weeks go by and you hear nothing. Finally, you pick up the phone, call the e-tailer and are told that there was a "glitch in the system" and that it will be another week before they can secure a truck to deliver your furniture. You're slightly irritated, but decide not to panic or get angry because it is only one more week.

The delivery day arrives on a Wednesday. The only day that the freight company could deliver was a Wednesday so you use one of your accrued day's off work and sit back in the comfort of your recliner knowing that in a few hours you will be relaxing in your outdoor space. There you'll be - under a warm sun, with a cool breeze gently tossing your hair to and fro. A few cups of coffee later, you have read all your online periodicals and even the fine-print on a few pharmaceutical advertisements. It's now mid-morning and your anticipation has become electric. You check your watch for the current time as the window of delivery was set between 11:00am and 4:00pm.

Thoughts of furniture placement dance though your head.

"The chaise lounger's near the big fir tree for shade, the dinning table and eight chairs under the pergola, the four club chairs and conversation table in the left corner."

You've finally decided where the best place in your outdoor space to enjoy a cocktail at the end of the day is going to be. You're becoming giddy with excitement.

You look at your watch again and it is nearing one o'clock. You're getting a little frustrated. You think to yourself,

"Why on earth would you think that the window between eleven and four would mean you're delivery would be at eleven?"

You realize that you still have a good three hours of waiting.

Time passes and it's now 2:30pm. Impatience is slowly overtaking your good mood. You decide that perhaps a quick call to the e-tailer is in order to find out if they can contact the truck and pinpoint your delivery time.

The young lady on the other end of the phone is polite but she informs you that they use independent trucking services and that she can not contact them to find out what time they will be at your home. You hang up and walk to the front door and depress the doorbell to ensure it is working. You look out the front window like a puppy in storefront and go back to pacing back and forth in the front hallway.

You open the door again and this time walk down the drive way to the street, looking both ways to see if there might be a truck coming. Disappointed, you see nothing. It's now 4:15pm and your mood has gone from elated to down-right angry.

This waiting game has now taken up your whole day and you want to know where the furniture is that you paid for three weeks ago. You dial the number to the company again and after hearing the 15th ring you realize it is on the east coast and closed for the day. You can feel your anger transforming quickly and inexorably into rage as you put the phone down and walk back to the window.

Then, suddenly, like a dream, there it is.

The large freight truck for which you've been on the look-out over the past three weeks!

It's here and you laugh a little at yourself internally for being so hot headed and childishly impatient.

Out you go to greet the delivery person. He opens the tailgate and with childlike anticipation you look inside the truck. Your eyes adjust to the dark inside and you don't see any furniture, just a scattering of flat boxes. The driver jumps up on the tailgate and starts to move the boxes towards the lift gate. You stop him citing what, surely, must be a mistake, but he carefully looks over the manifest and gives you the "good news."

All eighteen of these boxes he is about to place in your front yard are, in fact, the total aggregate of your "non-assembled" brand new outdoor furniture.

"Every piece is accounted for" the delivery man proudly exhorts while handing you a yellow slip to sign.

As you watch him set the first of these boxes on the front yard, your neighbor - the one who recently purchased from a local brick and mortar showroom - pulls into his driveway. He gets out of his car and asks if you need a hand.

You feebly smile at him and politely decline his offer in dreaded anticipation of the four club chairs, two chaise loungers, eight dinning chairs and two tables you will be spending countless hours (and curses) putting together over the next couple of weeks. The time during which, of course, you will have the added "pleasure' of being able to hear he and his family enjoying their outdoor living space in the furniture they recently purchased at a "real live" furniture store.

To some people, this little dramatization might sound far fetched. I can assure you that I have encountered such "hair raising" stories in my years of service to my clients. Other horror tales include; cash-on-delivery freight charges, missing components for furniture and instructions that where either not included or written in a language not known to the purchaser. Each case left the client frustrated, unhappy and, on a few occasions, unable to return the furniture because the cartons had been opened. If you end up spending weeks putting your furniture together or have to pay an additional 12% freighting charge or can't read the instructions to put your furniture together, are you really getting the best deal possible?

Probably not.