My wife and I recently purchased a Felicity Sunlit Cherry Bedroom Suite from Thomasville Furniture. Our Thomasville saleswoman had led us to believe that our Thomasville furniture would be made in North Carolina, but when it was delivered we discovered that it was all made in China. Thomasville had built its reputation on delivering high quality American-made furniture from North Carolina -- but it appears that those days are now long gone.
The fit & finish of our Thomasville made-in-China furniture was poor. There's really no other way to describe it. Our bedroom suite has a total of 28 drawers. Many drawers weren't centered in their openings; some drawers were recessed in too far, and other drawers extended out too far. After 2 visits from Thomasville's repair people, we still have: 8 drawers not centered in their openings; 13 that extend out too far; and 7 that are recessed in too far. Thomasville's repair people told us that our remaining problems were non-repairable. So I guess we'll just have to learn to live with this poor quality.
When we purchased our furniture, we specifically asked our Thomasville saleswoman what kind of wood was used in its construction. She told us it was "entirely cherry". When we later asked Thomasville's repair people that same question, they looked at our furniture and readily identified over 5 different species of wood -- just one was cherry, and at least 2 were obscure, unidentifiable Chinese hardwoods. What we actually received was quite different from what we paid for. When we brought this to the attention of the management of our Thomasville dealer, they completely ignored our complaint.
At first glance, Thomasville's construction quality appeared to us to be quite good (i.e., dovetail drawers, etc.). But in places where it wouldn't be quite as obvious to a customer, some of the furniture's joints are held together with staples. That doesn't instill much confidence that the furniture will last for more than a few years. We would have expected to find that kind of cheap construction in bedroom suites that cost under $1, 500 -- but not in a Thomasville bedroom suite that cost us over $5, 000!
My wife's dresser arrived with a large 10" circular hole in the back of the cabinet. Rather than repairing this damage "before" the furniture was shipped, Thomasville's factory instead tried to conceal the damage by screwing a large Masonite panel over the hole. While Thomasville repaired the damaged back panel "after" we discovered it, the point is that Thomasville deliberately shipped severely damaged furniture to a customer with the hope that the damage would never be discovered. That's not what one would expect from a quality "world class" furniture brand.
Thomasville's furniture is shipped with a Chinese "plasticized" finish. In our experience, it attracts dust like a magnet and unlike a quality lacquered or varnished finish it's relatively soft and easily damaged. According to Thomasville's "printed furniture care instructions" my wife and I are not suppose to allow synthetics, rubber, or plastics to rest on the wood finish as they may damage the finish. That, of course, prohibits placing most lamps, clocks, radios, TVs, pens, etc. on top of your Thomasville furniture unless you first modify the bottoms of those products.
Everything at Thomasville seems to now be focused on charging its customers as much as possible, while at the same time cutting its costs as much possible. Even the screws that hold the knobs to the drawers have been cost-cut. Rather than extending the screws into the knobs by at least 3/8", they just barely touch the knob. The cost savings across an entire bedroom set has to be less than a dollar -- and yet amazingly Thomasville still went for it.
After contacting our local Thomasville dealer several times about many of these problems and receiving no satisfaction, my wife and I wrote to Ed Teplitz, president of Thomasville Furniture Industries -- and also to Ralph Scozzafava, CEO of Furniture Brands International. Furniture Brands International owns Thomasville, along with Broyhill, Lane, Drexel Heritage, Henredon, and Maitland-Smith. Neither of them ever responded to us. That pretty much sums-up our Thomasville customer satisfaction experience.
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Date: Sunday, 02-Mar-08 22:27:51 CST
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We recently purchased a king bed from Thomasville in Vancouver, Canada. While quality has not yet been an issue, the customer service was the worst experience we ever had.
We had seen a Sofa, Coffee table and 4 Chairs at the same store and talked to the sales person who was going to give us a 20% discount on the purchase as a repeat customer.
My wife and I had not reached a decision but the sales person kept calling day after day and telling my wife in order to get the discount we had to give her a deposit. We finally gave in and went to the store to give her a deposit for the Sofa and Coffee table only and took some fabric samples home for the chairs. We also told the sales person that we were going to Seattle that weekend and that we would check the prices in the US to compare. She told us to bring a written quote and she would match the US prices.
We did exactly that. The price differences were well over $3000.0 for the Sofa, Coffee table and the 4 chairs. We got a written quote from the Seattle store and told the salesperson the truth about our situation and the deposit that we had paid on the Sofa and the Coffee table. She was very nice and helpful.
When we returned to the Thomasville store in Vancouver with the written quote as required, the salesperson took the quote to the Store owner to discuss. They both came back and told us that the Seattle Thomasville store is not allowed to sell to Canadian customer. This was news to me. We live in a free world and as the consumer and customer I've the choice were to purchase the goods. The owner asked to leave the quote with him for a day to figure things out with the store in Seattle.
When we talked to the next they told us that not only they would not match the prices contrary to what we were previously told by the salesperson. The only thing they would do is to give us a $400.00 store credit towards the purchase of the 4 chairs. Since we only had given them a deposit a few days ago and the merchandise was to arrive 6 to 8 weeks later I asked them to cancel the order and refund us the deposit. Ahhh... I didn't read the fine fine print and we were also not told that the deposit is non-refundable. We asked to put the $400.00 towards the current purchase balance of Sofa and Coffee table but were told that was not an option.
Lesson Learned: I will not ever buy and don't recommend to anyone else to purchase from the Thomasville store in Vancouver (Coquitlam). It is not worth the hassle and the prices for the same items from the same company are about 30 to 40 percent less in the USA. Even with the cost of duty and shipping it would be a better deal.
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