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Reasons I would: I might live in an area where furniture galleries are few and far between, and maybe I don't have a vehicle able to move anything larger than

Reasons I would: I might live in an area where furniture galleries are few and far between, and maybe I don't have a vehicle able to move anything larger than a small end table in the box. I might have a friend whose place is completely decked out in furniture from these vendors, and she invites me over to a party, like tupperware or certain unmentionable things are sold. You cater to a very specific group with high margin boutique furniture that is not available anywhere else but is nonetheless highly desirable. Reasons I would not: Furniture is like apparel and shoes; you can't describe an individual fit or feel over the internet all that well; that's why shopping malls stay in business and Amazon does much better selling coffee table books than coffee tables. Try though you may, you would have to reach an economy of scale eclipsing a percentage of IKEA or Wal-mart to leverage the savings from not needing a physical showroom. IKEA thrives in spite of (and arguably because of) having really crappy delivery infrastructure, because non-crappy deliveries would blow anybody's margins. What would really impress me is a self-assembling furniture kit, including 3-D printer/sewer, and all the raw materials to make it work. It may require a $10k deposit on a $40 chair, and require me to devote 6 hours of my labor, but I think that'd be an entertaining (and potentially quite profitable) alternative. Now to figure out how to make wood come out of a 3-D printer nozzle.

VLM 13y ago
"It may require a $10k deposit on a $40 chair, and require me to devote 6 hours of my labor" You might enjoy fine woodworking as a hobby. I don't have the woodturning and wood carving gear to be able to spend 6 hours on a chair. A large amount of time is spent in tool setup / teardown so I have built 3 bookcases in only about 10% more time than 1. This has some interesting implications for your dining room chair example, where it might be 6 hours to make one chair, but only 8 hours to make six chairs. Bolt together particle board kits usually scale much more linearly. Extensive product evaluation leads me to estimate if you buy raw stock and cut it yourself you can upgrade about 1 to 2 levels of luxury. So buy a kit of particle board, or buy boards of solid clear oak, for the same cost. This is an issue for your proposed kit idea.

VLM 13y ago

"It may require a $10k deposit on a $40 chair, and require me to devote 6 hours of my labor" You might enjoy fine woodworking as a hobby. I don't have the woodturning and wood carving gear to be able to spend 6 hours on a chair. A large amount of time is spent in tool setup / teardown so I have built 3 bookcases in only about 10% more time than 1. This has some interesting implications for your dining room chair example, where it might be 6 hours to make one chair, but only 8 hours to make six chairs. Bolt together particle board kits usually scale much more linearly. Extensive product evaluation leads me to estimate if you buy raw stock and cut it yourself you can upgrade about 1 to 2 levels of luxury. So buy a kit of particle board, or buy boards of solid clear oak, for the same cost. This is an issue for your proposed kit idea.