To want inexpensive garden furniture (and be annoyed with Aldi)?

[AliceRR]

I have just moved into a new house with my DH about a month ago. We now have a nice big garden (last house was a terrace with small back yard) and I’d like some comfy garden furniture. I love the rattan style stuff and they have some great stuff at the local garden centre but easily £1500-2000 and that’s more that I want to spend on the garden.

I ordered some furniture from Aldi, in the recent garden sale, two rattan style sofa sets for £400 (£200 each). Long story short, Hermes delivered all the small items we ordered such as garden lights and even the covers I purchased for the furniture. Arrow were supposed to deliver the furniture but didn’t even try (I was home the day they were supposed to deliver) and returned it to Aldi saying delivery was refused. Even Aldi can’t explain why this happened as they were supposed to make three attempts. After several calls and emails with Aldi, they have confirmed the furniture had been sent back to them, a refund was on its way to me and if I wanted the furniture I’d have to try to order it again (though it is out of stock).

So now it’s lovely and sunny and I would Luke some garden to sit outside on. It’s annoying as in the time spent waiting for my Aldi delivery I could have ordered something else.

Anything else in the same price range is not very nice. Granted, I haven’t seen the Aldi stuff in real life so not sure what the quality will be like but a friend said she had some furniture from Next and her friend got something identical or almost identical from Aldi.

Any advice on affordable but nice garden furniture?

I’m tempted but reluctant to order from Aldi and need to decide as I still have the covers and need to return them if I’m going to purchase elsewhere.

Never buy cheap garden furniture , it is a false economy.

That's odd. Did they have your phone number? Give uou a two hour slot? Did you track their progress on line on the day?

I had mine from Wowcher or groupon
It has lasted a fair few years so far
It was cheaper than any I’d seen in the shops
Can’t remember how long it took to be delivered though

Home Base sell reasonably priced furniture.

Wayfair.co.uk have reasonably-priced garden furniture with good lead times.

Might not be for you but I’d have a scout around the Facebook selling sites and eBay. It means I can buy better quality stuff than I can afford new and the delivery (calling favours, man with a van or renting our own van which factored into the cost against a new purchase usually still works out cheaper). Obviously it depends on what people are currently selling but it’s worth a look.

Did they have your phone number? Give uou a two hour slot? Did you track their progress on line on the day?

I just had a delivery day and time slot. They had my number and admittedly I somehow missed a call from a mobile phone nkmber. I can only assume I was in the bathroom or it didn’t ring for long as I didn’t hear it but I was home. I saw the missed call about five mins later and tried to call back in case it was re the delivery (still don’t know for sure) and even left a message. I’d didnt get another call and I was annoyed either myself for missing them but I got a text saying they’d failed to deliver and inviting me to arrange another day. I arranged online for it to be delivered the following Saturday (Saturday just gone) but on Wednesday or Thursday I got an email from aldi saying they’re pleased to do confirm they had processed my refund.

I called them and they said their records say I refused delivery. I explained about the call and that I could have missed it but I was home and no one rang the doorbell. They said Arrow should have made three attempts anyway but also said they had only recently started using Arrow and that seemed to be their only explanation. As they’d already processed the refund they couldn’t just sent the furniture to me and I couldn’t buy it again as it’s out of stock.

I’d consider second hand furniture

I’ll look at Wayfair and Homebase too. I don’t think of Homebase now that we don’t have one nearby

I just saw some on Dunelm Mill that looked ok and Argos has something similar to the Aldi stuff but I’m not sure about it now

I don’t want something that looks cheap but I’m not prepared to pay more than about £500 😬😂

Homebase
£400 www.homebase.co.uk/charles-bentley-napoli-deluxe-modern-rattan-4-seater-garden-lounge-set-grey_p346713
£200 www.homebase.co.uk/alexandria-rattan-effect-3-seater-corner-garden-sofa-set_p499263

B&M
£200 www.bmstores.co.uk/products/bali-corner-sofa-set-342155
£200 www.bmstores.co.uk/products/sorrento-corner-sofa-set-331305
£400 www.bmstores.co.uk/products/st-ives-luxury-corner-set-331309

I reckon you’d get something really nice for £500 second hand. Have a look on eBay at stuff close to you.

Rich people having a change of decor/look are my favourites they just want stuff gone a lot of the time and you might do well this weekend or next week (when everyone’s been shopping for new stuff over the bank holidays - I’m a buzzard at heart!)

We got a set from wilkos for 200, lasted 2 summers so far and still going strong!

Hmmm, bit worrying, I have furniture being delivered by them on Monday, so am hoping all goes well. I shall keep glued to my mobile though following your issue.

Check out Ace. It’s online. We got a lovely rattan set about 5 years ago and it still looks as good as new.

I looked at loads. I eventually took a chance and ordered from Alice's garden and I'm pretty pleased with it. It wasny that expensive about 400 I think but the quality is nicer than the others I've seen in a similar price bracket

We got some from ikea about 5 years ago and it’s survived two house moves and kids jumping on it so would recommend based on its resilience!

Funnily enough I've just spent the morning battling with Arrow over a garden furniture delivery. Having just moved and finding ourselves with a conservatory for the first time we ordered a lovely sofa set from ASDA and paid extra for choosing a particular day for delivery ie. tomorrow. This is the first Easter holiday that DP & I have had off together for about 7 years and this weekend is the only time we can be in for delivery for the next 10 days. So having placed my order with ASDA and had emails from them confirming dispatch & receipt of our order to/at Arrow, Arrow texted me this morning telling me that no such delivery exists for tomorrow. You can only communicate with Arrow by 'live chat' as the booking system for delivery doesn't work so I have rearranged delivery for April 30th (took an hour via live chat!!!) which is the earliest date we are available due to caring responsibilities and work shifts so not happy as apparently Arrow only deliver to my area on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
Come Tuesday ADSA customer services will get both barrels because they must know that their contracted delivery company only delivers on certain days and they are taking extra money to book in 'pick your own' delivery days when they know that they can not fulfil the order on time.

I am absolutely bloody furious as DP & I thought we'd be sitting in our conservatory on our lovely new sofa drinking coffee over the lovely bank holiday weekend - okay it's not the end of the world but I'm more angry that ASDA have taken our order knowing that they can't deliver and that we can't even pick it up from the store either.

Thanks for the recommendations. I’m looking at all of them. Some I haven’t heard of and didn’t think of Ikea

@Bluntness100 Yes do stay by the phone. I kicked myself for the possibility I’d missed their call and then was when I thought I only had to wait til Saturday

@MyPetPorg It is very annoying. As if your time isn’t precious?! If you paid much extra for nominates day delivery then I’d be tempted to get it back from Asda

Don't worry I will be asking for all delivery charges to be refunded and that's the very least I will expect from ASDA. I'm more worried that my furniture is going to be sat in Arrow's warehouse for 10+ days and will go 'missing'. DP reminded me that it was Arrow delivering my FiL's new bed a few months ago - it took 3 attempts to deliver a bed and mattress and every time Arrow lied as to what had happened to the delivery so I'm not hopeful.
The problem is that company's like ASDA don't want to tell you who the courier/delivery company will be because they know that they are bad and if they are honest then they will lose the order. The Arrow person that I 'communicated' with this morning would not guarantee that my sofa would be on the lorry on 30th April so I now have a feeling of foreboding for the next 10 days and no bloody sofa tomorrow! We only want some reasonably priced garden furniture that a) turns up & b) isn't broken - it's not much to ask when spending your own hard earned cash.

@MypetPorghasdied It seems Arrow are rubbish and businesses like ASDA should not be using them! Aldi have sent me two £10 vouchers to use online (in two separate transactions). I didn’t necessarily expect anything but that barely accounts for the time I’ve spent messing around, including two days waiting at home all day for deliveries that never came, several phone calls (all initiated by me) and a couple of emails (I had several emails saying they’d tried to phone me but couldn’t get through - no missed calls).

I really hope you get your furniture (and soon)!

We bought ours from jysk and it is amazingly good quality for the price :-) definitely worth a look! It's like IKEA but cheaper in my opinion.

That's so frustrating
There are some great bargains online.
Google, rattan garden furniture and there's loads of companies selling some great sets and separates for prices similar to Aldi.

I got mine from Wayfair and I'm pleased with the quality. I think the brand is "Outsunny" but I'm not sure.

www.aosom.co.uk/category/rattan-sets~346/

We had outsunny furniture from this site last year. Really good quality for the price.

Ooo and I've just seen Jysk have a up to 50% sale on garden furniture atm :-)

Thank you so much

I’m still looking through but tempted by this one

jysk.co.uk/garden/lounge-sets-0/lounge-set-ullehuse-6-pers-nature