In my line of business I have a lot of dealings with a great many suppliers of office furniture. Some have been good, some have been... let's say, not so good. Last weekend my Dad, who isn't the most comfortable person with computers, asked me if I could have a look online and see if I could find him a decent office chair for his study at home. He has this fascinating collection of old newspapers he likes to spread out across a desk and look at, but lately the old office chair that's quite possibly as old as some of the newspapers he collects may have been having a negative affect on his health; he's been getting terrible back pains, and after a trip to the local GP we think the chair may have been one of the primary causes of his recent problem.
Anyway, knowing that in my line of work I know my way around the office furniture industry quite well he asked my if I wouldn't mind trying to get him a new office chair. Now I'd heard some good reviews of a company based in Hertfordshire call Inter County Office Furniture, and I'd recently been handed a copy of their brochure which has the website address on it. So I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try them out. So I switched on my computer and after a delay of about 2 minutes waiting for my computer to finally get going I opened my browser and typed in the address. The first thing that struck me was how quickly the site loaded. My computer normally has problems with some shopping sites, but this site was on my screen in a flash. And straight away the first thing I saw was office chairs, starting at £44. For those who don't know their office chairs too well, £44 is pretty reasonable for a good chair, but what were these ones like?
Well I clicked though and was presented with a few options. Office chairs with arms, without arms etc. Now my Dad doesn't use computers so I didn't think he'd probably need arms so I just selected a basic office chair without arms. After a quick read through the description I realised I might well have found myself a bit of a steal here. 8 year guarantee, gas lift rated to 23 stone (which is enough for both my parent combined with plenty to spare!), suitable for display screen users... yes, this looked like a very, very good purchase. For a company to offer an 8-year guarantee on a product like an office chairs certainly demonstrates a great deal of confidence in their product. Picked out my colour, cobalt (which is like a deep blue colour) and put one in my shopping basket.
Went through the checkout, which was one of the less stressful shopping checkouts I've seen on the internet, and within 2 minutes I had bought the chair. The next day I even got a phone call from one of their sales guys thanking me for my order and letting me know when it would be arriving. So far, so good.
On Thursday the chair arrived, and the following day I put it in my 4x4 and headed over to my Dad's house. His back was feeling a little better as he'd stopped sitting for long periods in a chair without moving on the advice of the GP, and he put the kettle on to make me a cup of tea while I unpacked the chair and tried to assemble it. Had he put the kettle on after I'd unpacked the chair I might well have finished assembling it before the kettle had boiled! As office chairs go, this is certainly one of the easiest I've put together. Was assembled within 5 minutes or so, and my Dad gave it a try and it was perfect. Despite the low price Inter County certainly didn't scrimp on the foam; it was as good as some office chairs I've seen retailing for much more. A read of their brochure tells us that they also manufacture many of the office furniture products they sell, so this could well explain how they have such exceptional prices on items like this.
I gave my Dad a ring yesterday to see how he was doing and he mentioned the office chair I'd bought him, he thinks it is great. I hadn't used Inter County Office Furniture before, but I will certainly be using them again soon. In a couple of weeks I'm going to be buying a couple of filing cabinets, when I do these guys may well be getting another order from me, I saw some steel filing cabinets that look like a pretty good buy too.
To check out their website click here: office furniture.
