Office Chairs – Do your Homework First
Buying cheap doesn’t always represent the best use of capital, as anyone who has bought poor quality products of any sort can tell you. You always take a chance when you buy something that looks like a bargain, sometimes you get a great deal other times you end up with a pile of junk that requires a Saturday afternoon visit to the local dump!
Shopping for office chairs is a perfect example of this. There has been a steady flow of very cheap office chairs coming in from the Far East in recent years, and while there are some very good products there is also some very poor ones too. Many chairs are simply piled high and flogged cheap by unscrupulous suppliers with little or no testing. While most will last a few years, some are known to break within months.
Unacceptable some would say, however when we look to cut corners and spend less the manufacturers simply build products of a lower standard to meet the demand. Office chairs are constructed of weaker materials and thus weaknesses are introduced to the product. The simple advice would be to spend more cash and avoid the cheap imports, but it is a little more complex than that.
Most office chairs come with some form of certification, usually some BS standard or another, which shows they are up to the task of being an operator chair – ie, they can be used in the workplace. This is something few people would think of even checking for, but it should be the first thing you are investigating.
Finally never, ever order a large quantity of office chairs unless you are sure of what you are getting. If one has a fault the chances are they all do. Unless it’s a high-quality, tested chair be very careful.