Kelly Nelson

Baby Furniture Is Made Overseas, Like It Or Not
May 22, 2008

But why?  Why is everything imported and why does it take so dang long to get?  I'll tell you what I think.  I think the consumer market wants everything fast, efficiently, and in perfect condition and no one is willing to absorb the costs.  Therefore, we get products, in this case furniture, that is delayed time and time again, comes in whenever it gets here, and is of less than the best quality.  The consumer market as a whole, myself included, is to blame.  Everyone wants to complain but no one is willing to pay the higher price for the American-made product.  

Consider this scenario.  A retailer orders furniture in the juvenile products industry for a specific customer, as we often do, and that retailer has a maximum of 3 months to get everything and get it right.  After that, the customer has typically delivered the baby.  It is a requirement of most any mother, and a reasonable requirement at that, that the nursery be ready to go before the baby arrives.  How in the begeezus are we supposed to fulfill that consumer's need when some of this stuff is taking 6 months to get???  

It's not that the manufacturers want to hold onto their product.  Au contraire.  The manufacturers want to take care of things just as much as do the retailers.  There's just not a whole lot that can be done when the boat is taking months to make it to the final destination.  It's not the manufacturers' fault.  It's sort of the suppliers' fault but, more so, it is the fault of both the faltering economy and the buyers' unwillingness to demand American-made furniture!  (By the way, if anyone knows of a manufacturer that makes baby furniture in the U.S., please leave the info in a comment!!!)

And have any of you ever had anything stuck in customs?  That's a whole other issue!  I've had furniture come in after being stuck in customs for a month and it has customs agents' foot prints all over the boxes!  My cribs from Canada do not contain illegal substances or weapons!  Give me a break!  Homeland security needs to be so scrupulous with some other shipment.  Or, here's an idea, they need to be the ones to face the expectant mothers!

I have this perception of what must go on when we order a container of furniture.  This is not a factual account of what happens, only my perception of what must go on.  Laugh or cringe, but this is the way I feel about the whole subject...

I, the retailer, place an order for a full container of furniture from Company B.  Company B then sends an order to his supplier overseas in, say, Hong Kong (but believe me when I say it's not just China that's causing me grief).  Meanwhile, customer Jane comes in and wants this well advertised group of furniture for her precious new arrival.  

Back in Hong Kong, a factory full of over-worked, under-paid people throws some junk together at a steady pace.  They may make a mistake here and there but who cares.  It's going to America.  They can just blame it on the freight handlers once it gets here.  They may try to touch up some of the boo-boos, but really, who cares.  Eventually the workers have enough of the Company B product piled in the dusty corner and atleast most of the stain has dried.  They give a group of orphans a roll of Saran Wrap and tell them to go in circles around the furniture.  "Watch out for wet spots!" shouts a matronly figure from beneath the sweat and dust of the factory, more wanting to yell than to actually protect the wet stain.

The furniture is then loaded on the backs of really old, mangy donkeys and trecked to the port.  It takes a month or so for them to go all 12 miles to the loading dock.  (Of this I am sure.)  They then toss the product into the container.  The container is sealed and the boat departs.  This is about 2 months after the container was ordered and 1 month after customer Jane came in to place the order.  She is due in 2 and a half months but we still have plenty of time, right?

So, the boat has left port.  The freight liner is huge... bigger than a cruise ship.  At the back of the really, really big boat are 4 guys.  These 4 guys have paddles.  They propell the boat to the next destination for refueling.  (Wait, how come if 4 guys are paddling the boat they have to refuel?  Oh, they must need to stop for Gatorade.)  Okay, so they stop somewhere for some Gatorade and because they're docking the ship, the product has to go through customs at the port.  This will take several weeks and will allow the 4 men who paddle to rest while customs agents search the baby cribs for drugs.  

The container is released and the 4 men go back to paddling.  Customer Jane is now 6 weeks from delivery and the boat has just relaunched.  The 4 men paddle at a leisurely pace, pausing from time to time to enjoy whale songs in the mid-Atlantic.  They paddle for another month before arriving at the American port, but there is a storm.  One of the 4 men is afraid to dock because he does not want to get stuck in the port city... so they circle.  After several days, the 4 men decide to dock.  The boat is offloaded and the container is sent through customs.

Upon arrival in American customs, Homeland Security decides that the container, having been opened in the last port, could be carrying weapons of mass destruction.  They take every single piece out and give it the "search warrant" search, invading every drawer runner, every screw hole, and every bun-foot.  In the meantime, customer Jane is screaming violently at the retailer and the manufacturer.  There are lots of tears shed for this container of furniture, mostly by consumers, but also a few by me, the retailer, as well as a few by the representative of Company B.

After violating every splinter of every piece of furniture, each piece is set aside to be repackaged.  What do you know, there were no nuclear warheads tucked into the slats or drawers.  (Duh.)  While the furniture sits on the shreds of the boxes and plastic wrap, customer Jane goes into labor.  Her baby is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to her... and ordering her furniture from me, the retailer, has been the worst thing that's ever happened to her.  I listen to her cry as her baby coos in the background.  "I just want my baby's furniture" she pleads.

Finally, customs releases the furniture and it is loaded in re-taped boxes onto the back of an 18-wheeler.  In a week or so we have the furniture.  We deliver it to customer Jane at no charge but the damage is already done.  The customer isn't even happy to see the furniture of which she once dreamed.  And what if there is something wrong with it?  What if the orphans put plastic wrap on the wet stain?  Well, customer Jane will tell me but at this point she is defeated, so sullen toward her whole experience that this is just icing on the bitter cake.  

I don't know any customer in the world who would go through this even if you paid them for the furniture.  Your baby's room is not something that should be a nightmare.  It is supposed to be the most pleasant time in a person's life.  Now, because of our pathetic economy (the result of much failed foreign policy along with grossly inflated gas prices) the whole experience is shot for customer Jane.  She can never recapture the experience of preparing for her first child.  That has been taken from her by the consumer market's lack of intrest in her needs.

I hear you, customer Jane.  Loud and clear.

Posted by Kelly Nelson on May 22, 2008 | Comments (2)