B&Q to Expand their Home Furniture Ranges

by Majjie | Tue, 02/06/2009 - 08:25

B&Q announced last week that they are going to expand their home furniture ranges to include free standing furniture and bedrooms. They are also going to revamp their bathroom and kitchen ranges and will sell a wider range of kitchen appliances.

The kitchen appliances will be available later this month, with the free standing furniture planned to be available from August and the new kitchen ranges being introduced in the autumn and winter.

I'm not sure they need to improve their kitchen ranges. What they do need to do ... is improve their customer service and their delivery procedures. If they could ensure that people who ordered one of their kitchens got the whole kitchen - with no bits missing - first time ... that could improve their image no end.

The news about the appliances is good, though ... it will be somewhere to go and look at different appliance models and I guess the prices will be competitive.

I'm not sure about the free standing furniture. They obviously think there's a gap in the market following the demise of MFI ... and it will put them in even more direct competition with IKEA. Perhaps that's not a bad thing.

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Comments

by Amanda Vlahakis (not verified) | Tue, 14/07/2009 - 15:56

My good, I clicked on this to see if you were about to say anything good about B&Q after my own awful experiences. Their range is fine (but would like to see their freestanding kitchen range actually if that comes out), but their customer service is appalling. I actually paid for a bathroom suite with them, had dreadful service and ended up cancelling not only their installation after deciding their service wasn't good enough for me to risk having them install it for me .... but eventually also asking for my money back for the suite as well and getting it elsewhere. They need to take a serious look at their customer service. I think modern and well priced free standing kitchen pieces are definitely a gap in the market. Most suppliers of this type of product, outside of Ikea perhaps are on the higher end of the price scale.

by Majjie | Wed, 05/08/2009 - 18:26

Hi Amanda, sorry again about another late reply. And sorry to hear that you too have had trouble with B&Q. You're so right about them needing to look at their customer service. Launching those new ranges must be costing them a fortune ... some of which would be better spent on doing a bit of logistics ... and a bit of staff training.

I've recently been working on a kitchen plan for a couple who are having an extension built and some internal walls knocked down ... making a much more open living space. They took the building plans into a kitchen designer in B&Q, to get a plan and a quote ... but he apparently told them he couldn't work from building plans. A kitchen designer who can't work from building plans!! I ask you?

I've put the whole area onto my CAD programme ... so that they can see, not only a visualisation of the kitchen itself, but also the view from the kitchen back into the living areas ... and vice versa.

I always love the look of free standing kitchen furniture ... but I'm not sure how practical it is. Crumbs and spills always sneak down the gaps between the units ... and I really don't want to have to clean under my kitchen units.

The other problem with it, is that it needs to be fairly sturdy and solid ... simply to "free stand" at all ... hence it's often quite pricey. Cheap chipboard carcasses are made stable by being screwed to each other and fixed to the wall ... they don't need solid legs and end panels.

It'll be interesting to see what B&Q come up with ... I haven't been to look, so don't know whether it's arrived in store yet. Knowing B&Q, probably not ... or at least, not all of it!

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