What "Delivered Direct" Actually Means for Your Order

If you have bought from us you will have seen the phrase on the product page: delivered direct from our suppliers. It is the least glamorous sentence on the site and it shapes almost everything about office furniture delivery in the UK, including what your order costs and when it turns up. So it is worth ten minutes of explanation.

How your order actually travels

When you order a desk from us, that desk does not sit in a Deskwell warehouse waiting for you. It is picked at our supplier, loaded there, and sent to your address. One journey. Nobody unloads it into a shed halfway, counts it, stacks it, and loads it onto a second lorry a fortnight later.

That middle step is where a surprising amount of cost lives, and where most damage happens. Furniture gets hurt in handling far more than in transit. Every time it is picked up and put down again, something has a chance to catch a corner.

Some of our suppliers make the furniture themselves. Others hold a range they have had made for them. It makes no odds to your order: whoever they are, the furniture leaves their building and comes to you, and we are the ones you deal with.

Your contract is still with us. That part matters and people sometimes assume otherwise. If the goods arrive short, damaged or wrong, you speak to us, not to a supplier you have never heard of. We sort it out.

What it means for the price

Skipping the double handling is most of the reason our prices sit where they do. We are not paying rent on a building full of chairs, and we are not paying to move each one twice. Delivery charges, where they apply, are shown before you confirm the order rather than appearing afterwards.

It also means we do not need to guess what will sell. A supplier's full range is available to you rather than the six lines somebody decided to stock in March.

What it means for lead times

Lead times come from the supplier, so we quote what they tell us and we do not pad it to look clever. They are honest estimates rather than promises, and we say so in our terms because pretending otherwise helps nobody. A fabric that has to be woven takes as long as it takes.

If anything changes at the supplier's end, you hear it from us. The worst version of this trade is the one where the customer is left guessing and has to ring three times to be told somebody will look into it.

When it arrives, and the five minutes that matter

Big furniture arrives on a lorry with a driver who has other drops to make, so the five minutes it spends with you are the ones worth planning for. Walk the route the furniture has to take, from the kerb to the spot it is going in, ideally while you are still ordering.

1. Check the access. A delivery lorry needs somewhere legal to stop and room to work. Narrow lanes, height barriers and permit-only bays are all worth mentioning to us when you order.

2. Make sure somebody can take it in and sign for it. A delivery that has to be attempted twice can pick up a carrier's charge, and nobody enjoys that conversation.

3. Measure the doorway, the lift and the stairwell, not just the room. Boardroom tables are the usual casualty here.

4. Look at the goods before you sign. Count the parcels against the paperwork.

5. If anything is damaged, short or wrong, photograph it there and then and tell us in writing within 48 hours. Two working days is the window, and photographs settle it quickly.

Assembly, and who does it

You choose, and you choose it in the basket. On most products the delivery service sits with the item as you add it: flat-pack for self-assembly, pre-assembled so it only needs putting in place, or full installation, where it is delivered and installed where you want it. Pick installation and nobody is left with forty desks and an allen key. Where a product does not offer the option, ask us and we will price it.

After that we are still your point of contact. Every product carries a warranty, printed on its page, and if something fails inside it you come to us and we take it up with the supplier. That is the arrangement whether you bought one office chair or a floor of office desks. Guarantee lengths are printed on every product page, and a good deal of what we sell carries a five year guarantee.