There are several challenges involved around delivering furniture and heavy items to small mountain town residences. White glove delivery services are daunting, unpredictable and expensive.

Sarah Fay started DesignBar in Truckee, CA 12 years ago after relocating her services from San Francisco. Over time, client requests for unique and custom furniture increased. Sarah began sourcing furniture, decor and textiles for clients through vendors that cater to the design trade only. Rarely do these vendors deliver their goods residentially which means a receiver and delivery service is required.

The difficulty getting furniture delivered into the Sierras became apparent quickly. There are several major challenges involved in the world of white glove delivery services. The main issue is that large freight lines do not stop in Truckee. They consolidate orders in larger nearby hubs and then outsource the last leg of the delivery to local white glove delivery services.

DesignBar began by using white glove delivery services in Sacramento and Reno to bring furniture orders to Truckee and install directly into clients homes. There were several factors that impacted the delivery process which proved to be a major inconvenience not just to DesignBar, but to our clients. 

1. Weather : In the mountains the weather can change suddenly. The major freeway running through Truckee becomes backed up or closed in an instant due to passing storms.  There are multiple accidents around town causing gridlock. Delays are inevitable.  Often drivers from out of town would arrive unprepared to gain access to the properties. They would arrive late due to road conditions only to find that driveways had not been plowed. Drivers did not have shovels, nor did their vehicle or trailer have correct tires or chains. This would result in them turning around without delivering their load. We often times had to pay for delivery twice.

2. Preparation Time : The majority of our clients are second home owners and not present at the time of delivery. This requires us as the furniture purchaser to be on site supervising the installation. We tried our best to prepare the white glove delivery service team for any potential obstacles the property had, for example, stairways and hallway depth. Sometimes large items have required creative load in solutions where special equipment is needed to avoid injury or damage to the product. We have had to remove balconies, wear safety harnesses and employ various rigging techniques to install large, heavy items. This was time and effort we were putting into the delivery process cutting into our productivity as a design service.

3. Cost:  Naturally, our clients wanted to know how much money they would have to pay for white glove delivery services. The price tag to deliver to the mountains is hefty. We were charged for the drive time to get up the mountain, fuel and the time it took to load the furniture into the home. In the winter, drive times and installations would take even longer. We were faced with sticker shock many times and it was difficult to explain the costs to our clients.

4. Damage: We understand that damage happens in transit. Claims have to be filed through the manufacturer and furniture either needs to be returned and replaced or repaired. It was difficult and expensive to rely on white glove delivery services out of town to manage these claims on our behalf. We needed the process to be quick as our clients are waiting for their items. The white glove delivery companies have their own business to focus on so getting them to make our broken furniture a priority became a major challenge. The time they spent against this also needed to be compensated for so essentially we were paying someone else to manage our damaged goods.

These factors started to effect our ability to be affordable to our clients and maintain company profitability.

We started to think about what it would look like if we took control over the local receiving, inspecting and delivery of furniture for our interior design clients. Luckily, Sarah’s husband was familiar with moving oil rigs, shipping containers, heavy vehicles and subsea pipelines. It wasn’t exactly a natural progression into furniture logistics but he decided to help lead our efforts. 

In 2019, we leased a warehouse in Truckee, purchased a forklift to be able to discharge pallets directly from the large 53ft container trucks and sourced a delivery box truck with a large hydraulic lift gate. We also tested various software apps to help the designers communicate ordered items with the delivery staff.

The learning curve was definitely apparent and it was an investment on our part but the benefits where immediate.  The ability to control deliveries, inspection and damages on our own has made us more efficient and improved the way we communicate with our clients. We can now tell them exactly when furniture arrives, what the condition is and schedule delivery right away.  No more waiting on an out of town white glove delivery service to consolidate a load up to Truckee. We can deliver and install furniture into clients homes the same day we receive it if needed and there are rarely surprises. We know ahead of time about the potential obstacles for delivery since we are already in our clients homes helping design their spaces.

DesignBar is proud of the reputation we have built with our clients. Being able to offer interior design services and white glove delivery services to our clients as brought tremendous value to our company. We’ve been able to streamline the delivery process, improve lead times and cut costs. Our processes have been tested on our own clients for a year and now we are beginning to offer our white glove deliver services to other interior designers in Truckee/ Tahoe and beyond.