Factors That Determine the Cost of Furniture

Furniture prices can be rather baffling. To the person who is shopping for furniture for the very first time, it usually very hard to make sense of them. Items of furniture that one would expect to be costly ending up going for very low prices, whereas pieces of furniture that one would expect to be sold for a song end up being sold for what seem like prohibitive prices. Of course, to the regular players in the furniture markets, the factors at play in determining the price of a given item are all clear to see. But to the person doing this for the first time, matters are not all that clear-cut.

Now what is important when trying to understand the price of furniture and similar items is the fact that these are not the sorts of things where price is under the exclusive influence of demand and supply factors. As it turns out, many of the furniture items also happen to be the sort of things that are termed as 'prestige' items, which, as we are taught in elementary economics, are not totally subject to control by the demand and supply systems.

So the 'prestige' factor plays a significant role in determining the price of furniture items, especially those so-called 'high end' furniture items. But the price of furniture items is not under the control of subjective factors such as 'prestige' alone. There are also other more practical factors that go into determining the cost of furniture items.

One, for instance, is the type of wood used to make the piece of furniture in question. As it turns out, some types of wood almost invariably command higher prices than others. Usually, this has to do with the reputation of the said woods with regard to things like durability and appearance. Some woods are also more prone to insect attacks than others, and the vendors will tend to sell pieces of furniture made from those insect-attack-prone woods at cheaper prices than they would sell pieces of furniture from the types of woods that are not prone to insect attacks.

Whether the furniture comes assembled, ready for assembly or totally disjointed (so that you first have to prepare it for assembly and then assemble it) are other factors that will tend to play a major role in determining the cost of the furniture. It is not the assembled furniture that tends to be most expensive, as one would expect, but rather the 'ready to assemble' variety, with the totally disjoined pieces of furniture being typically the cheapest - but coming with lots of hidden costs in preparation for assembly and the eventual assembly itself.

Where you buy the furniture will also play a role in determining the price you buy the furniture for. Some stores sell their wares more expensively than others - even for exactly the same pieces of furniture.

When (in terms of months, for instance) you buy the furniture might also play some role in determining the price you ultimately pay for it. Furniture vendors keep lots of statistics on their sales for different months, so that they eventually work out which the high demand months for furniture are, and which the low demand months for furniture are. Seasons characterized by low demand are, naturally, characterized by low prices and those 'unbeatable offers on select items of furniture.' On the other hand, the seasons characterized by high demand are conversely characterized by propotionate high prices on the furniture.

Source : ezinearticles