Get Sneaky Discounts on Damaged Furniture With Superficial Flaws

Have you ever been offered a discount on damaged furniture?

I’m not talking about buying something from an ex-display furniture outlet. I’m talking about ordering something from the internet that arrives with superficial flaws.

The first time it happened to me it was like a lightbulb turned on in my head. I was complaining to La Redout about a roller shutter office cabinet which turned up superficially damaged. It wasn’t the end of the world but it was expensive and felt tainted by the damage. They offered me a 5% discount, which I refused. I wanted an undamaged product. They bumped it to 10%, and I again refused. However, I also realised I had unwittingly stumbled into a negotiation.

I told them it would take at least a 30% discount to keep the cabinet, otherwise they could replace it. They agreed. This thing cost me £600, so a 30% reduction was £180. It didn’t feel so tainted anymore! I’ve still got it, and every time I see the damage I smile.

Interesting how that 30% refund transformed a disappointing experience into something satisfying, isn’t it?

I quickly worked out that returns are an expensive problem for almost all companies, especially with large items like furniture. So they will do whatever they can to get you to keep the product rather than return it. Even if that means giving you a discount.

I’ll tell you how you can get extra discounts on the furniture you buy in the blog post. I also have an additional trick that will help you save even more.

How to Get Money Back

First things first, you will have to pay the full amount upfront. The discount you can get here is retrospective. However, it’s pretty easy to get it.

Let me give you a real life example of the last time I did this.

Last month, I bought my son a bunk bed. I don’t know why. He’s 4, he can’t even use the top bunk for a few years. But that’s not the point of the story.

When it came – flat packed, obvs – lots of the pieces had minor damage. An end had been dented and the grey laminate wrap had been scratched in places. We only got him a cheap one, we’re not made of money. Still, I was disappointed at just how much damage there was. Some had been badly covered up with a kind of grey resin to match the colour of the bed.

I’m no furniture maker but I assume they are whizzing cheap parts off the machine too fast. Cheap products manufactured quickly and with little care are easily damaged. So they have Jeff (or whoever) at the end of the line with a tub of grey repair polish to quickly cover up any scrapes or nicks.

Except Jeff doesn’t take much pride in his job, so it looks rubbish:

I sent these photographs to the company I bought the bed from, explaining my disappointment and expressing my concern that the damage would be visible once the bed was built.

I did not ask for a discount.

The company replied thus:

I am sorry to hear that you encountered issues with your bed. We apologize for the inconvenience. Our beds are thoroughly checked and have passed the safety regulations, and I can assure you that this is an isolated case. Please provide the following so we can send the replacement parts:

• State the part numbers affected (can be found within the installation instructions).

• Provide batch number can be found either on the product packaging or product labels

• Provide images of all boxes and kindly describe the condition of all the boxes on arrival.

It is important to note the following:

Please do not attempt installation if damages are visible. Items cannot be returned once they have been installed. By installing your furniture, you are acknowledging its acceptance in good condition. It is also required to retain the product within its packaging as we cannot arrange a courier collection without this if the product needs to be collected.

Alternatively, if you can rectify the issues without requiring the parts, we are prepared to offer a 5% discount off the price of the bed.

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

I don’t know if I can bear the hassle of getting new parts. There are loads of them with bits of damage, it would take ages. Is 5% the best you can do on the discount?

We don’t usually offer monetary compensation as our warranty for missing and damaged parts only covers replacement parts, but since you have been very patient about this situation we are ready to offer you the maximum discount of 10% as a one time courtesy.

Tips for Success

A company doesn’t have to offer a discount, so if that is your aim you need to go about it the right way. I like to mention the damage without asking for anything and see what they say. I can usually gauge their approach from there.

It’s a good idea to have some idea what you are aiming for. If it’s badly damaged you might think 30% is the minimum you would accept. On the other hand, you might want it returned or replaced regardless of any discount offered.

As I said, every company will handle these things in their own way. You have to be adaptable.

The bed company said 10% was their maximum discount, but who knows if that was true. Other companies are much more willing to negotiate further, especially if the alternative is you sending the product back for a full refund. This costs them two delivery slots (drop off and pick up), they lose the sale, and also have a returned product they can’t sell. But then, another company might have a much bigger delivery fleet so prefer to replace rather than partially refund.

If you want to get the best discount possible, here are my top tips for success:

• Credit cards – Always use a credit card to pay. This gives you section 75 protection. You can simply cancel the transaction with your credit card company and the retailer doesn’t get the money. It’s then on them to come pick up the item. I have only had to do this once, and the company never came back. I was left with a free (but scratched) vertical radiator worth £300+.
• Take Pictures – You will need photographs of any damage. Take them immediately, with the packaging still in the background if possible. This helps to show the damage was not caused by you. Your pictures should be time stamped by your phone anyway.
• Packaging – Don’t throw the packaging away. If you end up returning the item you will need the original packaging.
• Manners – You are a disappointed customer whose expectations have not been met. You are not an angry customer demonstrating how outraged you are.
• Negotiate – You are doing them a favour by keeping the damaged item. So any refund has to be worth it. How much would you need to avoid the hassle of packaging the item back up and arranging collection? How much would you need to alleviate any disappointment with the product? Remember though, there is a limit to what you can expect. The trick is to push a bit, but not so hard that negotiations break down and they decide to collect the product and chalk it up to a loss.

Sometimes you really don’t want to keep the product but they will try and convince you to anyway. In this situation the roles are reversed – you end up negotiating to get rid of it.

Twice this happened to us. Once with a sofa from Sofology, and another time with a wardrobe from a random internet company I don’t remember the name of.

Sofology had just changed their manufacturer and the quality was absolute tripe. They did everything they could to get us to keep the thing. In the end we had to threaten them with a section 75 and they gave in.

The wardrobe arrived with several pieces literally smashed in half. You could see daylight through the holes. I told the customer service people this and they still tried to give me a 10% then a 20% discount to keep it. It was kindling. It would have been the most expensive firewood in the world if I had said yes. Again, section 75 saved us.

Doubling Up Your Discounts

Here’s the extra trick I hinted at.

The discount I have been mentioning so far is technically a partial refund. However, there is a way to combine this with another offer to double up your discount.

There is a lot of competition in the furniture industry, especially among online retailers. Many internet companies sell the same products for more or less the same prices – they are all supplied by the same wholesalers or manufacturers. This means the customer has to choose between 3 or 4 business to buy their product.

The price doesn’t tend to be significantly different, but delivery costs may influence your decision one way or another. To get your custom, many will deliver for free if you hit a spending threshold. Even better, most companies offer a discount on the retail price for new customers who sign up to the newsletter.

Well, email addresses are free… 😇

They might spot you are the same person by your name, address or card details, it depends on their internal systems, but it’s always worth a go!

In any case, it is often possible to get free delivery on top of a 5%-10% discount if you buy from a company as a ‘new customer’. We did that with the bunk bed I mentioned earlier. So that 10% refund was on top of a 5% discount, giving us 15% off the retail price in total. That’s a £60 saving.

That’s a middle of the road example, you can get a bit more than that, it just depends on the company. Obviously, the more expensive the item is the more that 15% represents in monetary value too.

If you can buy the item via a cash back site then even better. It’s 50/50 as to whether the cashback will be granted after getting a refund, but again, you lose nothing by giving it a go.

The newsletter sign up/new customer discount alongside partial refunds always works though. I have done it loads of times. I have probably saved myself a few thousand pounds over the years so it’s well worth pursuing.

A Word on Honesty

I should point out that I have only ever pursued a discount when there has been a genuine issue.

One of my pet peeves is the drop in furniture standards across the board. They use cheaper materials, quicker production methods, and sell mostly lower quality products. All the while, prices go up.

You know those old oak chest of drawers your Nan had since she was 25? Do you think your flat pack set from Dunelm will last as long? Not a chance!

Even when you buy from the higher end of the market, you see evidence of poor quality construction. Well I got sick of it. Everything I ordered was scratched, or had blobs of wood glue dripping down the side, or something. And I’m not alone. Did you know that between 2020 and 2021, 36 million people in the UK had an issue with a product they bought online?

I feel totally justified when making complaints and asking for partial refunds, because I am always sent imperfect products. So why should I pay full price?

I think everyone should do it. Then perhaps retailers would feed back to their suppliers and quality would improve.

What I don’t think is ok, is inventing issues where there aren’t any.

When I talk about scratches, I mean proper scratches. Not the kind you can only see when the light shines on them in a certain way. So complain and feedback with confidence, but keep your integrity intact while you do.

Happy discount hunting!