2021/05/29 18:20:59
The Ultimate Guide to Fast Furniture
What is fast furniture? That’s the question on everyone’s mind right now. As times changed and people became more mobile, the need to come up with furniture that could be moved around with ease led to some interesting innovations and inventions that have now come to be known as Fast Furniture. And just like other similar concepts like fast food, fast washing machines, and the likes, the main aim of the entire phenomenon is to create convenience for people who keep moving from one place to another as far as home furniture is concerned.
We are going to explore what fast furniture is all about, its history and place in society, the famous fast furniture brands that exist today, their pros and cons, and a brief look at the process it takes to make them. If you are familiar with fast furniture but have no idea on how to go about getting your hands on them, then stick around to the end and learn a few tips that will make your dreams come true.
What is Fast Furniture?
Fast Furniture is a concept where furniture is made quickly and shipped to its destinations in record time. They are not made to last; they are simply created to serve a single purpose, built for a season after which they are either tossed out or destroyed. Unlike in the past, where furniture used to take time and a lot of investment, fast furniture is cheap and gives people who love changing things in their house an eerie few months the flexibility and freedom to do that without burning through their funds.
Fast furniture has become a popular fad in the last ten years as people started getting busier and the freedom to relocate became easier. Spurred on by the emergence of other industries that used the ‘fast’ model, fast furniture has grown over the years to the point that traditional furniture is now being threatened since no one is spending money buying long-lasting furniture because millennials don’t have the purchasing power that allows them to afford homes that would benefit from long-lasting furniture.
The fact of the matter is that fast furniture has changed how people view furniture. What used to be a lifetime investment has now been transformed into a passing fad. People are buying furniture for the moment, and once they’ve had their fill, they discard them and move on to new ones.
Factors that Led to the Growth of Fast Furniture
Fast furniture did not just pop out of the blue. It was an answer that sought to address a void that regular furniture had failed to plug. The fast furniture industry has been growing steadily over the years, and the following are some factors that led to its rise in popularity.
● The need for lightweight furniture for people on the move. With the world becoming interconnected, people tend to relocate to other areas at a moment’s notice. Having lightweight furniture, they can carry along with the theme was a solution that everyone was thinking of. This led to the rise of fast furniture.
● The need for affordable furniture for people who have been priced out of high-end items. Quality furniture is not cheap. Materials like mahogany wood cost a lot to procure, and many people would find it hard to purchase them no matter how badly they may need them. The need for cheap furniture is what contributed to the fast furniture industry growing and expanding rapidly.
● The rise of online shopping also led to people adopting fast furniture as that is what many furniture shops display online. They are easy to deliver and are cheap. When you combine all that with the convenience of shopping from the comfort of your house, then you will quickly see the reason why fast furniture has become very popular in urban centers.
● Discarding fast furniture also comes without any loss. Once you are done with it you can simply dump it. Although this is bad for the environment, when compared with other forms of furniture, the ease of getting rid of fast furniture without running into high losses is an attractive thing for people who don’t see themselves settling in one place for too long in the near future.
● The strict laws that came into effect curtailing the heavy use of wood to curb deforestation pushed manufacturers to find new alternatives, and fast furniture was one of the things they came up with. They use a wide range of materials in their manufacture, materials that are widely available. This contributed to the prices on fast furniture being low.
Top Fast Furniture Brands
You have to give the people what they want; this is a mantra that many top furniture brands in the world understand very well. Besides providing high-quality and long-lasting furniture products, they also make fast furniture for an ever-growing clientele. The following are some of the top fast furniture makers in the market right now.
IKEA
IKEA is credited for being among the pioneers of fast furniture, and they have been around for a very long time. The Swedish company was formed in 1943 and has expanded to serve clients on every continent, with stores in most countries with open markets today. The company has used the experience it has gained over the years to continue making inroads into new products besides furniture, and they now dabble in electronic, solar power systems, smart home solutions, and most recently, fast furniture. Being the go-to furniture store for millennials, their products are in high demand around the world, all thanks to their strong brand that has been associated with quality products over the years.
Burrow
Burrow is a more recent entrant into the furniture world, and in a short span of time, the company has established itself as a leading manufacturer of fast furniture of all kinds. What started out as a venture between two friends has now grown to have distribution centers across the globe for Gen-Z furniture. Burrows are especially known for their unique couches that are cheap, stylish, and strong enough to serve people for as long as they may wish.
Wayfair
Wayfair is another well-known brand that has been around for a while now. It has one of the strongest online presence with a very robust and functional online store that serves people from all over the world. Wayfair stocks all kinds of fast furniture that can fit both home and office needs. Thanks to their free shipping, Wayfair has become quite popular with the masses making buying furniture online easy and accessible for many, especially young people who are always on the move and are looking for quick solutions for their temporary abodes. The online store allows people to create visualizations of how their furniture will fit in their homes.
Article
Article prides itself as a provider of modern furniture, and they do have a catalog of very stylish furniture pieces for those that love fast furniture. If you are the type that loves a minimalist setup, then Article is your go-to place where you get to choose from a wide array of options. For their regular furniture types, Article relies on high-quality materials that are designed with some of the best artisans in the game. For their fast furniture offerings, the company does pay attention to style and durability and which gives their products a slightly longer lifespan compared to some of their competitors on this list.
The Pros and Cons of Fast Furniture
Like any product that undergoes any manufacturing process, fast furniture comes with its own set of strengths and drawbacks. These aspects vary from one person to another depending on their uses as stated below.
Pros of Fast Furniture
● Fast furniture is easy to make as they don’t require complicated materials like other regular furniture types that have to be made using quality hardwood or metal. The time it takes to make fast furniture makes them a quick-solution option for people who want furniture at a moment’s notice.
● Fast furniture is lightweight; moving it around doesn’t take much, and this makes it the best option for people who keep moving from one place to another due to job obligations. Some can even be folded up when moving to occupy as little space as possible.
● Fast furniture is cheap compared to other types of furniture in the market. The materials used to make them are easily available and can be accessed from any part of the world. The manufacturing process also utilizes very few resources, and this is what translates to their affordable prices.
● As far as materials go, fast furniture is more flexible as it can be made using just about anything; it all comes down to how creative the manufacturer can get. This also means that the furniture designs one can go with are unlimited.
● Fast furniture requires very little maintenance aside from regular cleaning. If you are a light user of furniture, you could go months without having to do anything to them. This makes them a convenient option for small houses that may be too cramped up for proper cleaning.
● Transporting fast furniture is easier and cheaper due to the low weight capacities. This makes ferrying them from one continent to another very easy using freight ships which come in handy when dealing with heavy demand. Most of the fast furniture is designed to be collapsible, and at the same time, it can be sent in pieces for assembly; this means it can be packed tightly without wasting space.
Cons of Fast Furniture
● Fast furniture doesn't last like regular furniture. Most are made using particle board, with the only form of exterior protection being a laminate or veneer layer. Once the surface gets damaged, which is very easy at that too, you can’t do much about it.
● Making fast furniture is very wasteful. With no resale value, once they have sustained some damage, most people usually throw them out, and they end up in landfills where they wreak havoc on the environment.
● Fast furniture is very toxic to the environment. Not only does it use a lot of natural wood, which leads to the unnecessary destruction of trees, but some of the materials used release cocktails of very toxic chemicals. These chemicals range from leather tans, polyurethane foam, and other flame retardants that can be harmful to life.
● Fast furniture is not sustainable furniture. It cannot be recycled effectively since most are made with recycled materials that become more expensive to reuse. Things like particle boards tend to deteriorate with time, and reusing them would only end in creating inferior furniture pieces.
● Fast furniture is produced at a very fast rate, and this has led to a surplus as demand can no longer keep up. This has led to the lowering of wages of the workers who make them and, at the same time, created a backlog of idle fast furniture that will eventually end up in landfills as waste.
● Their transportation contributes to the addition of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as most of it is handled by heavy ships that leave a wake of destruction in the sea. Even the simple process of transporting the discarded fast furniture to dumping sites uses a lot of vehicles due to their high volume. Every single step involved in the transportation of fast furniture to and from customers is bad for the environment.
How Fast Furniture is Made
Fast furniture is not made to last, and that should give you a good deal of the process used in their manufacture. The aim here is to provide people with quick solutions for temporary needs. You don’t go for fast furniture when you are planning to furnish your new house where you raise a family. This is for students and hermits who never stay in one place for more than six months. So how are they made?
First comes the materials. Most fast furniture pieces are not made using high-quality wood. In fact, most times, they are made using compressed wood chips, particleboard, and other inferior materials, the type you would find after other wood types are recycled. They also tend to make use of other synthetic materials like plastic.
The next step is the design, where the shape and size of the furniture in question are arrived at. Fast furniture is never that big, and they usually involve small coffee tables, bookshelves, and other small structures that don’t require too much weight. You can’t make a bed using fast furniture materials unless you want it to collapse under you within the first week of use.
The manner of joining the different parts of fast furniture pieces is not as intensive as the one used in regular furniture. Owing to how weak the materials in the various parts are, mostly adhesives are used to join the furniture. This makes them weaker than all the other types of furniture, a big reason why they are cheap, don’t last long and cannot handle heavy loads.
The time it takes to combine all the joints together to form a complete piece of furniture is very fast and can range from minutes to a few hours at most. This is the reason why fast furniture is not considered eco-friendly furniture; it has become such an environmental hazard that there are concerns about how far the damage has progressed due to their dumping. They are reduced in abnormally large numbers at high speed using very toxic chemicals. Once they are dumped into landfills, they become a huge problem as they cannot be recycled like normal furniture.
International shipping is also easy for fast furniture as it can be folded into smaller pieces so that they occupy the least space possible. They can also be transported in prefabricated forms with instruction manuals on how to set them up.
How to Distinguish Fast Furniture from Quality Furniture at the Trade Show
It is hard to tell fast furniture from quality furniture at a trade show at first glance. When new, fast furniture does look divine from a distance, and it is easy to be taken in by them. You will only realize your mistake when it is too late. So what are the signs that will help you tell quality furniture and fast furniture apart? The following are some helpful tips to guide you.
The Price
The price tag on fast furniture will tell you all you need to know. They usually spot that price tag that makes you think twice and start being suspicious. They may not look for it but they usually go for very low prices, and in this case, the cheaper they are, the lower their quality. Therefore, whether you are shopping online or visiting a physical store, or attending a furniture fair like the famous CIFF trade show, always keep your eyes peeled for the prices and avoid any furniture piece that goes for way less than the expected market price. That’s usually the first indication that you are dealing with a fast furniture piece.
The Fabric
Sometimes all you need to tell quality from inferior is by touching the fabric. Quality furniture has a very solid feel to it. The fabric is of the highest quality, and the way it sets on the skeleton of the furniture will tell you everything you need to know about what you are dealing with. Fast furniture, on the other hand, has low-quality fabric that usually feels like they were put on for the sake of covering what’s inside instead of providing comfort for the users. You will never find pure cotton covers or leather exteriors on fast furniture; they usually sport synthetic forms of fabric that are a crossbreed between nylon and cotton.
The Finish and Detailing
Quality furniture pays attention to detailing and finishing by using the most complex patterns and the highest quality materials. Most high-quality furniture you see in furniture shows is handcrafted by experienced experts who have been handling that kind of work for years. It takes time to pull off the intricate designs and shapes you see on some of these furniture pieces. Fast furniture, on the other hand, lacks any detailed patterns and shapes as they are made in huge numbers very quickly. Owing to their prices, it wouldn’t make any sense to add high-quality designs on something that will not be used for more than six months.
The Weight
Fast furniture is very light in weight. Most of them are made using particle boards that are compressed together and secured using a thin laminate. Even the joints are merged together using adhesives. It is rare to find any nail or bolts used in any part of a fast furniture product. High-quality furniture, on the other hand, is very heavy because they are made using high-quality materials like hardwood. Furniture made from mahogany, for instance, tends to be very heavy, and moving them around can be very difficult. Therefore, check the weight; if you can lift a piece of furniture without any problems, no matter how small it may be, then you are probably dealing with fast furniture.
Availability
The mass production of fast furniture makes them widely available; you will find them in every store, both offline and online. The more the same design of furniture you see around, the higher the chance that what you are looking at maybe fast furniture. Quality furniture can be found in any shop and furniture fair, but they are never assembled in huge numbers. In fact, in many cases, quality furniture is made on order due to the high cost of the materials used. It would be a huge loss to make something speculative, hoping someone will buy it at the end of the day. This is not something that fast furniture manufacturers have to worry about. Whether they are sold or not, the company doesn’t incur a huge loss.
Visit the Factory
Paying a visit to manufacturers is also another effective way of determining whether you are about to buy a fast furniture piece or the real deal. When you see first-hand how the furniture is assembled, you will be able to tell the difference between fast furniture and high-quality furniture. Fast furniture manufacturing would be much faster and more automated compared to the other type as that requires hands-on detailing to fashion it to the accepted standards slowly. Some manufacturers make both high-quality and fast furniture, and knowing the difference between the two sets will need a very keen eye.
Things to Keep in Mind when Choosing Fast Furniture
As much as they are considered the opposite of eco furniture due to their harmful effects on the environment, fast furniture is a concept that will not die out any time soon. There are people who still need them, and if you are one of them, the following are some of the things you need to pay attention to.
● Your Purpose: Are you looking for something that will see you through a short period of time, or are you looking for furniture that will last you ages. If you want a quick fix that will serve for a couple of months as you study or do some contractual work in some town, then fast furniture would be a better fit for you as you can discard them once you are done without feeling the pinch.
● Your Budget: Like we have mentioned many times over. Quality furniture is pretty expensive, and only a few people can afford it. Therefore, if going for that type of furniture is way beyond your budget, then fast furniture could serve your needs at a far lower budget until you get to the point where you can afford something better.
● Availability: It is easy to find fast furniture, but that is not true for every place. There are some locations that may lack furniture shops, and this could mean you’d have to ship them in from other places. This could cost you a little extra, so you have to be prepared for that.
● Know your Space: You have to buy furniture in line with what your house offers in terms of space. Interior design is a sophisticated process that requires more thought than what many people assume. Fast furniture may be cheap and temporary, but that's not an excuse for you to overwhelm that space with anything that crosses your path.
● Think about Maintenance: Generally speaking, fast furniture doesn't need much when it comes to maintenance. However, they still require some form of attention to keep them clean at all times. Some require more attention and if you are the type that has no time to spare, then go for fast furniture that will demand less of you.
● Ease of Disposal: Eventually, it will reach a point where you have to get rid of the fast furniture pieces that you buy. That time usually comes when they have been sued to the point they can longer be salvaged. You have to consider how easy it would be for you to get rid of them. Some companies usually take them back for destruction or for landfills, and having such in your speed dial would be more convenient.
● Comfort: You still need comfort no matter the type of furniture you choose to go with. This should be a priority when looking for fast furniture. They may be low in quality with a short shelf life, but that shouldn’t take away comfort from the equation. So make sure you check out every piece of fast furniture you plan to buy to ensure it is up to your standards.
Concussion
Fast furniture leaves a lot to be desired, but the fact of the matter is that there are people who depend on them. There are efforts to further refine them to make them a little more gentle on the environment. When it comes to making a choice between fast furniture and high-quality furniture, your personal preference and needs should help you make a decision. Make it a habit to attend furniture fairs and exhibitions to learn more about fast furniture. For more information on where the next big events will be taking place, check out our website at your earliest convenient time.
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