We at Designer's Warehouse would like to take a moment to help you, the homeowner, understand the ins and outs of a receiving warehouse partner in your interior design project. One aspect that often raises questions is the role of receiving warehouse services. This article aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of these services from our perspective.
Why Do We Provide Receiving Services?
Receiving services are a fundamental part of your design project. Once your interior designer orders your furniture, it needs a destination. However, this usually can't be your home. Many vendors only ship to commercial addresses, not residential ones. This is because furniture doesn't travel through the mail like your typical Amazon package; manufacturers use freight line carriers, which are large semi-trucks that often travel across the country for deliveries.
Moreover, most design projects require a minimum of a dozen deliveries per room, each of which can weigh anywhere from 25 pounds for a couple of lamps to 300 pounds for a sofa set! It's not feasible for you to constantly wait at home for these numerous and large packages to arrive in 4-8 hour delivery windows. Hence, when your furniture pieces are ordered, they get sent to us, your receiving warehouse.
What Do Our Receiving Services Entail?
Despite the name, “receiving” encompasses much more than just signing for a package. At Designer's Warehouse, our comprehensive receiving services include:
Being available all day to accept deliveries
Unwrapping the item/package
Inspecting the item for damage upon receipt
Repairing aesthetic imperfections
Wrapping the item back up for protection and delivery
Disposing of packaging and crates
Storing the item in a safe and secure place
Delivering all your items to your residence when we’re ready to install
Sending regular updates throughout this process, including photos
Damage Control and Storage
A surprising amount of furniture arrives damaged, ranging from surface level scratches to broken legs. Our team takes photos and writes up a report of the damage so we can then contact the vendor and arrange a replacement. We take care of this for you, so you don’t have to worry about filing damage claims yourself or spending hours on hold with customer service.
Our receiving services also include storage; all of your furniture is scanned into our online database and safely organized and stored in our warehouse so it can be collected at a moment’s notice. We chose each piece to create a cohesive whole, so instead of making a million trips to the receiver to pick up singular items, our receiver holds onto it all in one place. This way, when we deliver it, you can have that exciting, TV show-makeover reveal of your beautiful new home.
Delivery and Installation
Our team delivers all your items to your house with white glove treatment, assembles furniture as necessary, moves everything to the exact spot your design team designed it to live, and cleans up all the packaging before they go. Moving is an exhausting process, so it is invaluable to have a professional service do all the heavy lifting – literally!
Hauling Off Trash or Old Furniture
Another aspect of our receiving services is hauling away the boxes and crates after the install. We take this back to our warehouse and make large trips to the recycling center and dump on a regular basis. In addition to trash, we have many clients that have wanted us to haul off old furniture. If we want it for our personal use, we don’t charge you anything to haul it away. If we don’t want it, there may be a small fee for us to haul away old furniture to cover our time and costs to dispose of it.
In conclusion, our receiving warehouse services are the crucial last steps in making sure you get your furniture in great condition and in a timely manner. At Designer's Warehouse, we strive to provide comprehensive warehousing services for interior designers in Wilmington, North Carolina. From receiving and inspecting items to storage and delivery, we have you covered. Contact us today to streamline your design projects.