Last Updated on August 5, 2015
Are there any quality online retailers out there?
Me and a few other garden bloggers have discussed recently about the lack of choice when it comes to furniture retailers online (UK).
It seems like the dominant “pile ’em high, sell ’em cheap” retailers (Argos, Homebase, Tesco, etc), are the only option available whenever you search for garden furniture online, and for the ones experienced enough to have purchased sets from these places before, you will know how poor the quality is, and how they don’t last longer than 5 minutes!
In my hunt for a better alternative, I started searching for things like “weatherproof”, “premium”, and other qualifiers to dig around in the depths of the search engines and find a possible “hidden gem” retailer!
I even found some discussions asking whether or not their own rattan furniture was even weatherproof!
Here are my results:
Top Online Rattan Furniture Retailers (that aren’t well known brands)
- Gardencentreshopping (www.gardencentreshopping.co.uk)
The one thing that stood our about Gardencentreshopping as opposed to other retailers was that they are actually based out of a real garden centre (Sapcote Garden Centre in Leicester). This means they have a real business phone number, real local customers, and a real showroom!
They can’t do the classic “internet business disappearing act”, that many throughout the late 2000’s have done, and so will most likely strive to provide a better service, and better quality of product! Something their twitter page highlights quite well:
https://t.co/RNegO5ig0D New range of rattan dining sets available now at @gardencentresh #rattan #gardenfurniture #dining sets
— Gardencentreshopping (@gardencentresh) August 5, 2015
Their Range of Reclining Garden Furniture
This is something I was very excited about, and definitely not something my local garden centres stock! It is a range of high backed, reclining furniture, that uses hydraulic mechanisms! This means you can recline to unlimited angles, not just the classic set positions of a normal reclining set. You can view their fantastic range of reclining garden furniture here.
This video below is something I found on their website, might be useful, or might be an advert!
Other Discussions About Rattan Furniture
I’ve been keeping a good eye out for other people mentioning rattan furniture, it’s been an interesting few days of research, but I think I’ve found a few interesting new points of view:
A lovely article about the donation of reclining rattan furniture.
The main garden centre page on reclining.
The best corner rattan sofa set.
Conclusion? Use a Trusted Online Seller!
As shown in the Gardencentreshopping example, you must use a seller that has a real business behind them. This is one of the only ways you can ensure long term customer support for your furniture. Especially when purchasing premium rattan furniture, as this is supposed to last a long time, so if it starts degrading after a few years you need to be able to contact them for guarantees etc.
If you enjoyed this review, share it, leave a comment with questions, and I’ll get back to you next time.
