Ready-to-assemble furniture is going through grand change. Once dominated by Swedish Meatballs, the industry is now seeing huge growth from disruptive start-ups challenging the traditional retail experience.

Due to the changing nature of shopping habits, customers are now not only looking for high-quality products at competitive prices, but for convenience too. When we launched Swyft our first question was: Do people want quality furniture, faster? The simple answer is yes. But, there is still doubt and superstition surrounding ready-to-assemble furniture, especially sofas.

Understandably, people are dubious when it comes to buying sofas online because it’s a considered purchase. It’s an item which is used daily, has a big impact on the style of a room and is only replaced, on average, every eight to ten years.

We’ve tried to counter preconditioned customer concerns by ensuring our shopping experience mirrors that of traditional methods. Firstly, we’ve done this by offering visual assets:

1. An augmented reality experience, which encourages customers to use their phones’ camera to project a 3D model of the sofa into their home. This allows the user to visualise the sofa as well as play around with their colour palettes.
2. And free swatch boxes to help customers feel fabric textures and see colours in-person.

Secondly, we’ve built trust and confidence in our products. One of the biggest hurdles for ready-to-assemble furniture is quality. Here, we’re trying to change the assumption that the quality of a made-to-order sofa outweighs that of a ready-to-assemble sofa; we do this by offering frame and fabric guarantees and an excellent returns policy.

We want to ensure our customers are as confident buying online as they would be in-store. The quality of our sofas match the quality of those within a similar market space, which is why our trust points match all those of traditional sofa offerings.

One of our aims is to change negative connotations associated with ready-to-assemble furniture. And, ultimately, show that the future of furniture is ready-to-assemble. So, we’ve listed four reasons why you should invest in ready-to-assemble.

4 reasons why you need to buy ready-to-assemble

Delivery is a breeze

The ability to get furniture items in and out of any home is one of the biggest roadblocks when it comes to buying. Will the piece of furniture fit through the front door?

With a ready-to-assemble sofa, this hurdle is thrown out of the window (along with the old sofa). Sofas will likely come in a box or two, immediately making delivery and accessibility pain free. PIVOT, no more.

A box can fit into more awkward spaces than a fully built sofa. It’s a fact.

No more 10 week wait

Sofas have notoriously long lead times. Waiting up to four months for a sofa takes the excitement out of the experience. It’s daunting, can sometimes require forward planning (let’s say, you’re moving home and need a sofa to ready for move-in date), and is often a hassle.

Ready-to-assemble sofas challenge this idea. Why wait for a sofa if the quality is as good as its made-to-order equivalent? Convenience is key, so ensuring customers dictate their delivery is vital, not the other way around.

Assembly is like a jigsaw

Easy assembly is one of ready-to-assembles’ biggest selling points. With our sofa collection, we wanted to ensure our sofas were as easy to put together as a jigsaw. So, we designed a Swyft-lok mechanism which allows the back and arms to slot into place at ease. As the legs are screwed into the base, the whole assembly time is less than five minutes and without the use of tools. Perfect.

We also wanted to ensure they could be dismantled as quickly as they could be put together. Ideal, for those on the move or renovating.

Sustainability is key

Customers are as conscious about the environment as most brands. It’s a core concern for many, so is often reflected in the brand promise. We know we’re not perfect, and we’re always looking for new ways to help improve our environmental impact, but sustainability is at the heart of what we do.

On average one tree builds 25 sofas, so for every one sofa we sell, we plant one tree. Alongside this, all of our materials are look for traceable, sustainable timber. we’ve partnered with the World Land Trust and our packaging is recyclable (even the plastic).

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If you want to learn more about our sofas and how they compare to their traditional made-to-order cousins, our customer service team will be happy to answer any of your questions.