New company Floyd will deliver furniture to your door in five hours
The table, courtesy of Floyd
Is there anything you can’t get delivered same-day in NYC? New Yorkers have always been able to get pizza at a moment’s notice but now you can get restaurant deliveries, pharmacy items, groceries (even Walmart, which doesn’t have any local stores, is getting on that game), wine and, yes, sex toys.
Now, Fast Company reports that newcomer Floyd, a Detroit-based furniture company, will deliver same-day furniture. Most furniture companies take 6-8 weeks from order time to delivery but Floyd is taking notes from Amazon and shaking things up: “We saw [same-day delivery] as a real differentiator, changing how people buy furniture.” For a company that wants to dethrone IKEA, taking notes from Amazon is probably a good start.
The bed, courtesy of Floyd
Floyd was started in 2014 by Kyle Hoff and Alex O’Dell with just the Floyd Leg, a hardware set that could turn any flat, hard surface into a table. After seeing much success through Kickstarter and an interactive Instagram campaign, the co-founders were able to raise $5.6 million in VC funding.
Hoff’s own personal experience trying to assemble an Ikea bed frame–“It quickly became clear that most furniture was destined for the landfill,” he says of the challenge–led to his idea of creating easily-to-assemble, transportable, and sturdy furniture.
The article outlines the typical reasons furniture takes over a month to get from order to delivery: the size of the product, the enormous amounts of SKUs furniture companies typically have, the fact that most furniture is manufactured abroad and that they aren’t flat-packed for easy delivery. By only offering select items, Floyd avoids the large quantity SKU issue. They are also teaming up with a fulfillment center in New York.
The company says if you order by 4pm, the furniture will arrive by 9pm. Currently, the items available are flatpack beds and dining room tables. After New York, they will roll out service in San Francisco and then Los Angeles.
Whether or not they will be able to keep up with their promise will be interesting. But when you realize you need a bed in the middle of the night, you know who to call.
[Via Fast Company]