Furniture website slammed for cheap prices

A north London furniture company has been boycotted by one of its suppliers because it is undercutting high street furniture stores.

Lordship Furniture says it wants to "shake up the furniture industry" and that it is merely responding to demands by customers for better service and prices in an industry where average mark-ups are in the region of 100 to 150 per cent. Manufacturers are said to be coming under pressure from big name furniture outlets to stop supporting online furniture retailers.

Lordship complained to the Office of Fair Trading who launched an investigation about the supplier, the Glasgow-based Morris Furniture Company. Morris, according to today's Financial Times, seems to have missed the point that IT has long been sold to businesses as a tool for gaining competitive advantage.

John Switters, chairman of Lordship Furniture, told the FT: "I know I am pushing he boundaries, but someone has got to be first." ®

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