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Why Leading Furniture Stores In Auburn Avoid Outsourcing Their Supply Chains

  • Writer: Admin
    Admin
  • Jul 5, 2021
  • 2 min read

Updated: Mar 6, 2024




The leading furniture stores in Auburn craft all their products themselves. They have workshops where they create custom-made furniture items for local shoppers. By investing in such companies, local homeowners get to support local designers and craftspeople.

Although these top stores offer discounted prices on their furniture items from time to time, these experts always prioritise quality. That’s why these stores have long-standing relationships with the finest local material suppliers. It is this commitment to quality that prevents them from outsourcing their supply chains.


Here’s why some other reasons why these stores avoid outsourcing their supply chains –


Imported Materials Are Not High-Quality


The furniture stores that are able to offer ridiculously low prices on their products import their raw materials from foreign sources. Items like rubberwood are cheaper to import than manufacturing it here. However, by doing so, these stores sacrifice quality on the altars of cheap foreign labour.

  • Offshore suppliers will typically lace the furniture materials with chemicals to make them appear appealing or durable.

  • It’s easier to buy and sell large amounts of low-quality timber (significantly lighter than high-quality timber) when you’re dealing with offshore companies.

  • Most of the money that end customers spend on these furniture items is spent on international shipping fees, taxes, duties, and logistical expenses.

Local material suppliers lose business. Local sellers are outcompeted by international retailers. Shoppers receive low-quality furniture items that are hard to replace because there are no local stores or repair centres to visit. Sourcing low-quality materials from foreign locations only benefit the retailers.

Everyone else involved in these transactions suffers. Even the foreign workers who accumulate the raw materials are underpaid and not treated well. That’s why the average shopper must check whether his or her furniture store online sources materials locally or not.


The Sustainability Issues


The best furniture stores in Auburn have workshops located close to their local material suppliers. This way, they save money on international shipping, taxes, duties, and logistics. But, local sourcing of furniture materials was never about cost savings. Outsourcing supply chains to the other ends of the planet is highly problematic for the environment.

  • Emerging economies often offer their natural resources for low prices by planting harmful rubberwood farms after cutting down precious rainforests.

  • The short-term profits these exporters gain is nothing compared to the long-term impacts on the environment.

  • Local sourcing will enable a local furniture store online to support local communities and forests.

When you know how much forestland you’ll need to create the next set of furniture pieces, you’re likely to invest in tree-planting initiatives. When importing low-quality materials from offshore countries, furniture sellers often blind themselves to the risks of rampant deforestation.


Worker Health and Safety


In advanced industrial nations, progressive labour practices safeguard worker health and safety. Workers in the underdeveloped countries that export furniture raw materials are often not protected by any such laws. The leading furniture stores that are committed to their staff members want to display the same level of commitment to their raw material suppliers.


That’s why, to prioritise worker safety, they avoid outsourcing their supply chains. These are just some of the underrated benefits of local sourcing. Customers need to understand these benefits while selecting which types of furniture sellers they wish to engage with!


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