Buying Furniture in Erie, PA
Posted June 14th, 2005 @ 03:22pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Carey and I have spent the past few days buying furniture. On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we visited John V. Schultz, Arthur F. Schultz, and Oak Express. We also checked in at Kaufmann's and a few other smaller places.
We're looking for quite a bit of stuff, making us pretty good customers:
- Dining room table
- Six chairs for dining room table
- Sofa table
- DVD storage
- Desk (for Carey's schoolwork)
- Coffee table
- End table (or two)
- Chest
- Dresser
- Headboard
- Nightstand (two)
Arthur F. Schultz closes at 5pm on Saturdays, and we arrived at 4:50. When we asked to see the bedroom sets, we were directed to the second floor. The man who directed us there made sure we knew they were closing very soon. We took the elevator and found that the lights were off already. So goes Arthur F. Schultz. They didn't seem to have a very large selection anyway.
We looked at John V. Schultz next. They have a healthy selection, and the free hot dogs and beverages are a definite plus. We've gotten a different salesperson each time we came in, and Carey's family has been burned by John V. Schultz in the past. They take between 30-60 days to deliver anything, and her brother waited almost 90. Their prices are higher, but they do offer a 10% discount for cash purchases (over their financing). We found a bedroom set we liked for around $2500 out the door.
Carey and I were trying to play John V. Schultz off of Oak Express (and "Bedroom Expressions"). Both had similar sets, and Oak Express had finally - after a good amount of badgering - agreed to honor the 5% discount they'd called to offer us earlier in the week when we had stopped in. We found some things we liked, but matching the colors was going to be difficult. Our bedroom set could be a different style, but we wanted everything else to match. Doing so at Oak Express would be tough. Their delivery time was 4-6 weeks.
On my mom's suggestion, Carey and I visited Seifert's Furniture in North East (PA). Carey and I had graduated with one of the Seiferts (Ryan), and his dad Dale still owned the place. It's been in business forever.
Suffice to say we purchased quite a bit of furniture on Monday. We spent about $5,600 out the door where it would have cost between $7,000 and $8,000 elsewhere. We take delivery of our bedroom set tomorrow (Wednesday), and the living/dining furniture no later than 4-5 weeks. Delivery is free (it was $70 to $200 at the other places), and we financed about 2/3 of the purchase with no interest for a year. Dale gave us a significant bulk purchase price - a coffee table we purchased for $229 ran $379 at Oak Express.
The quality of the furniture we bought is higher - solid wood throughout, no veneer - and the pieces we chose will match beautifully. The selection was tremendous, and Dale has a lot of experience. Carey and I easily had six to eight bedroom sets that we liked enough to consider purchasing. We were able to customize the legs on our dining room set and match woods across product lines with the cabinet door Carey and I had been lugging around.
I've always been a big fan of supporting the little guy, the independent home-town shop, but usually that comes at a slightly higher expense over the chain stores and multi-national "big business" retail boxes. Not so here: Seifert's Furniture beat everyone's prices, selection, and knowledge. We look forward to being happy customers.
Plus, it'll be nice to be able to put our clothes away tomorrow night. Thank you, Dale.
Donate Life
Posted 15 Jun 2005 at 9:29am #
oh hey if you are gonna pitch an old coffee table let me know. I'll be by tonight to pick up the stuff you have for me.
Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 3:28pm #
Wow, nice experience for ya so far! Hope it stays that way!
Posted 28 Jun 2005 at 12:08pm #
Carey and I bought furniture a few weeks back and took delivery of our bedroom set a few days later. A few days after that we shuffled the furniture around and put the pieces - bed, two nightstands, chest, and...
Posted 26 Dec 2005 at 12:15pm #
We too have found this wonderful store, quite honestly by mistake! They even do free delivery and set up in New York State!~ We found the perfect canopy set at Raymour and Flanigan at a cost of almost $3000.00 and we asked Jim at Seifert's...he not only took the time to see if they could order the same set...but imagine our surprise to buy the same exact set for just under $1200.00!!! We also are now return customers and found this article while looking for their phone number to return for the third time!! QUALITY, THE BEST PRICES AND WONDERFUL, NON- PUSHY, KNOWLEDGABLE ! i ALSO hIGHLY RECCOMEND THIS PLACE! You will never go anywhere else!
Posted 03 Feb 2007 at 6:48pm #
my husband and i was looking for a queen size bed and we live a few miles south of Meadville and we was going to go to Erie to these stores and my husband suggested that we look on the internet before we drive all the way to Erie and find nothing. 👿 Some way i got onto this site and read the experience you had with the same exact stores we was going to look at and was surprised to see your results!!!! 😯 We have a Seifert's in Meadville and had originally went there first. The very kind and patient lady had given us a quote on a bed, king size first, but then we decided to go with the queen and she strongly suggested that we did. She was very helpful and didn't act like we was bothering her with our questions. I am so glad that i got on this site by accident because we would have wasted our time going up to Erie. I just wanted to tell you a little about our story and thank you for putting this on here for other people to see and read. Again thank you very much, you have made our decision soo much easier for us.
Best wishes
Teresa & Norm 😛
Posted 06 May 2007 at 8:40pm #
😀 seifert's is the best place to buy furniture! My sales girl, Natalie was so sweet and helpful, we always recommend them to our friends and family. 🙂
Posted 15 Jul 2007 at 11:02pm #
Thanks so much for your posting as well as reading other peoples' responses. My husband and I are looking for a new,good quality, bedroom set for my son's 15th birthday. My son asked if we could remodel his room for his birthday, including get new furniture. Since he currently has my old brass bed with flower embellishments, a single small dresser with painted on ballons and a rainbow which was used as his changing table when he was a baby, and no stand for his t.v./xbox...he had a legitimate request. Besides, we want to get him a nice, well made set, that he can one day take with him when he gets his own place. Thanks for directing me to Seifert's...I can't wait to see what they have.
Posted 01 Jan 2008 at 8:40am #
I need help. My husband and I are planing a trip to Erie from Toronto Ontario. We are looking for a custom dinning room table. I would love to know where we should go to find one. We have been told that the prices are so much better than in Ontario and don't mind picking it up.
Thanks.
Posted 20 Sep 2011 at 12:03pm #
I was so glad to read your experience . I have only been to John V Schultz and had planned to run around to see what else is available in erie . Now I will start with the little guy and hopefully keep my financial support in my own community .
Posted 09 Oct 2011 at 3:39pm #
Another nice place to keep in mind is a little furniture store in Conneaut Lake called Chilson's. They are nice folks to work with as well and have an unusual amount of furniture to look at for a small store. I plan to buy a leather sofa soon so I will keep Seifert's in Northeast in mind. My experience with JVS was okay but I was very disappointed with the bedroom set I purchased. It seems like every-time I bump it, I put a new knick into it and the drawers are always breaking making them difficult to close. AVS salesman wasn't into bartering for a discount price on a stovetop range so we said bye-bye but I have to admit I did check out their scratch and dent section and saw some good prices on items that had very little wrong with it.