Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Year 3: Room and Board Annual Clearance Sale 2011

Reese Sectional from the 2009 sale
It's become an annual tradition to stay up all night for the launch of the online Room & Board Annual Clearance sale. I'm pretty good about being patient and waiting all year for the once a year sale on December 26th for my furniture needs. Usually the discount ranges from 30-50% off, and a little more for floor samples. They usually load all the clearance items at midnight Minnesota (central) time, and it's worthwhile to stay up as items sell out really quickly. I'm not the only waiting up as the website has crashed the last few years that I've been following the sale. Despite technical issues, I've always gotten lucky every year and been able to buy exactly what I was looking for, mostly thanks to the great customer service from the folks in the call center in Minnesota. I do all my research all year long, visiting showrooms, reviewing the catalog, so I'm ready to pull the trigger as soon as the clearance page is loaded. The first year, 2009, was the Reese Sectional and a pair of Meade chairs for our living room. Last year was the Kartell Phillipe Starck Louis Ghost chairs. I've always had to follow up with the Minnesota call center in the morning due to the technical issues or delivery questions, but the service I get from them is outstanding. Seriously the best customer service out there. I prefer to shop with them over the phone rather than in the stores. For even more savings, I've had my mom go to the floor sample sale on December 26th at the stores, since I'm always traveling on Christmas. Usually you can save another 20 percent or so, but there's always a line before the store opens so you have to get there early and know what you want. If things sell out online overnight, it's a good idea to try your luck in stores in the morning.
Meade Chairs from the 2009 sale
This year, the front clearance page wasn't loaded right at Midnight central time, more like 1am. Then, although the clearance page was loaded, most of the discontinued / limited items weren't loaded onto the clearance page, it was still mostly special orders that had been that had been there for awhile. They was a lot of activity on the website: loaded a lot of new items and colors and completely pulled the discontinued items off the website but didn't reload them in the clearance section. The website froze a couple of times but didn't
completely crash as badly as previous years. I checked a few more times, around 3am, 7am, but still nothing new was loaded. Finally, by the time I woke up at about 9:30am central, everything had been loaded. At least I had company this year, my friend S who was waiting for the sale from West Coast. Alls well that ends well though, and despite a sleepless night, we both snagged exactly what we wanted at great prices, and we will be picking up our purchases from the distribution center (to save on delivery costs) in early January. Pictures of the latest purchase to come!
A pair of Louis Ghost Chairs from the 2010 sale

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