A whole-house furniture package — formal living room, open living and dining area, and bedrooms — specified once, quoted through two entirely different manufacturing routes, and delivered on a single date.
The brief
A private client with a newly finished house and no furniture in it. They wanted the whole thing handled — seating, dining, bedrooms, rugs, mattresses — and they wanted it to arrive at once rather than over four months.
The budget was serious but not unlimited, which is the case where a procurement house is worth most.
What was in it
Formal living room — a modular L-shaped sofa at 278 × 484cm, armchairs, glass and ebony occasional tables, a side table.
Living and dining area — a 3,000mm dining table, dining chairs, a 2,410mm console, a media unit at 2,430mm wide, counter stools by Eichholtz, and a 300 × 400cm rug.
Bedrooms — an emperor-size bed with a full headboard at 2,240mm wide, benches, bedside tables, an armchair and side tables, on a Hypnos Wool Origins mattress specification.
Delivery — white glove throughout. Unpacked, positioned, assembled, packaging removed.
What we did that a retailer would not
Priced the same schedule twice. We produced two complete quotations for the identical specification: one routed through Turkish manufacture, one through UK supply. Same pieces, same dimensions, same fabrics — different manufacturing base.
Then we gave the client both documents and let them decide.
Almost nobody does this, because it exposes the pricing logic. We do it because the comparison is the argument. When a client can see the two numbers side by side against an identical specification, the conversation about where furniture is made stops being about perception and starts being about money.
Split the order. The result was not all one or the other. Pieces where UK supply made sense stayed in the UK. The larger casegoods and the bespoke items went to Turkey. The branded pieces — the Eichholtz stools, the Hypnos mattress — came through our trade accounts at a discounted net price shown openly on the quotation.
Consolidated it. Multiple suppliers across multiple countries, held in UK warehousing until the house was ready, then delivered and installed in one visit.
The commercial detail
Every line of the quotation showed the list price, the discount applied and the net unit price. A flat furniture discount ran across the branded lines. Delivery and installation were quoted as a separate line and deliberately excluded from that discount, so the client could see exactly what the logistics cost rather than having it buried in the furniture rate.
Terms were sixty per cent on order and forty before delivery. The quotation carried a fourteen-day validity, because supplier pricing and freight rates do not hold indefinitely and pretending otherwise creates an argument later.
The awkward part
Large upholstery and London houses. A 484cm modular sofa does not arrive as one piece, but the individual modules still have to get through the door, round the stair turn and into the room.
Access is checked before anything ships, not on delivery day. It is a dull piece of work and it is the difference between an install and a very expensive afternoon.
Why it matters
The client did not manage a Turkish workshop, a UK supplier, three brands, a freight forwarder, a customs entry, a warehouse and an installation crew. They approved a schedule and then a house was furnished.