How to Buy a Sofa Online

The promise of online shopping - that virtually anything you want can be sent to you within a day or two - is not true of many home items, and no item is it less true of than a Sofa. Go to just about any furniture website and you will find that sofas have anywhere from a two-week to three-month lead time, which is a long period to wait when you want that sofa now.

Long lead times are a result of customization; most companies now sell only sofas that require some sort of customization - fabric choice, arm style, leg color and size, to name a few. And once ordered, your sofa decisions are set in stone; custom orders are nonreturnable.

Sofas with shorter lead times - and the possibility of returning them - do exist. Companies such as Crate and Barrel and RH (formerly Restoration Hardware) offer a limited range of [quick-ship" models. But those are upholstered in basic neutral fabrics and shipping (if the item is available in your Zip code) still takes a couple of weeks. If you are not satisfied, you can usually return a quick-ship sofa, but it has to be within a 30-day period (you need to contact Crate and Barrel within seven days) and you are often required to pay a restocking fee.

Even if you remove the notion of getting your sofa quickly, the entire online sofa shopping experience is tricky; not only is the sofa likely to be one of the more expensive home purchases you make, it also needs to be comfortable, a highly subjective requirement that is truly only determined in person.

To successfully purchase a sofa online, you should educate yourself on a few matters.