So I fell in love with a piece of ‘price upon request’ furniture. It’s honestly some of the worst pieces of furniture from the biggest con artists around!

Ok, so I don’t necessarily mean that- the item is actually incredibly well made. It’s not one of those ‘particleboard frame, honeycomb board top, with a wood-look paper melamine finish’ pieces of junk whose description sounds more like the fabrication of a cardboard box which crumbles under the weight of a feather more than a solid piece of furniture.

I knew what I wanted, and I definitely didn’t want that. Yeah sure, they still look exquisite on the website- but once you get that flat pack home and start assembling your fancy new piece of cardboard furniture you may as well just save yourself the time and energy and placed the entire thing in the garbage! In fact, I bet the box that it arrives in is sturdier than the furniture itself.

The ‘Price On Request’ Lured Me In!

But I couldn’t help myself. I bit. I clicked on the button to send an email to the company so that I could find out the price of the gorgeously made piece of furniture that my heart so desperately wanted. Even though I knew that not only did it mean the company would get to harass me like a used car salesman whenever I least expect it, to try and get me to commit to buy, but also that anything which states ‘price upon request’ is more often than not ridiculously expensive – that’s precisely why they don’t disclose the price on their site!

It’s puzzling really. It’s not as though I were attempting to buy a designer piece of furniture. I wasn’t trying to purchase something from the Versace home collection. And even if I were, the prices of their elegant furniture are disclosed on their website. There aren’t any sales traps – you want it, it’s yours!

Seriously though, who has the time to send ridiculous emails just to get a price of something? Designers understand that parenting is time consuming so they don’t place the unnecessary stress on us – they make their prices known.

So Expensive!

When the lovely sales representative inevitably contacted me about the price of the item I wanted, it was actually worse than I had anticipated. The silver lining of course was that they offered 60 months interest-free options – and I calculated it would only take me the next FIVE YEARS to have the invoice paid off, if not MORE especially if an unexpected expense popped up over that timeframe.

One could only hope that the piece of furniture itself would last for the entire payment plan period and that you wouldn’t be left holding the bill for something years after the item broke or became outdated and no longer suited your home.

These are the sorts of things that I think about when contemplating the seductiveness of interest free options. How long is the item actually going to last? How long do I want to maintain the same piece? Will it see a family of nine, soon to be ten, through for many years to come? And if the answer to any of these questions is ‘no’ then it simply isn’t worth being tied down financially like that for an excessively long period of time!

Considering that I have never owned one of these items of furniture before I suppose I’m not going to miss not having it. You can’t miss what you’ve never had and I’m more than happy to wait for an incredible sale to pop up before I commit to anything.

Don’t Fall For It!

It’s the words ‘price upon request’ that gets me though. I’m somewhat disappointed that I fell for it knowing exactly what these three words often mean- ‘IT’S A TRAP’ is usually my gut instinct. I guess I was just hoping that I would be wrong this time.

It’s funny what we think we need in life. All these additional bits and pieces to one’s home. Sure it’s nice, it’s beautiful to look at and more often than not it makes you smile. But, let’s not forget who has to dust, clean under and maintain that piece of furniture… I guess at the end of the day without it, it’s one less chore to do – not to mention a few thousand dollars worth of savings (is what my brain keeps coaxing my heart to believe) *le sigh*.

I wonder if this is how the old saying ‘less is more’ came to be? Either way, if I just say it enough times it just might help! And if all else fails I suppose I could even attempt making it myself, it is just wood a bit of glue, a few bits and pieces to hold it all together and some varnish after all… isn’t it?

Photo by Lovefreund

Have you ever fallen for the ‘price upon request’ trap? Tell us in the comments below.