Hickory Furniture Mart
What to bring with you?
Good walking shoes. You are going to be on your feet all day long here, with an occasional rest. Be prepared. This place is basically an indoor mall of furniture stores, comprised of four levels, which makes for a lot of walking.
A good mindset. If you don’t have a positive outlook and a good disposition, don’t go. Grumpiness is not going to help you when furniture shopping. Also, unless you are a veteran marathon furniture shopper, don’t go looking for furniture for an entire house. You will be overwhelmed.
A laptop computer with wireless capability. For us, this was great to have. At the coffee shop, we browsed the Internet, compared prices and called other stores closer to us to find out if we were getting good deals or not. If you are really wanting to make sure that you are getting the best deal possible, you will want to do some web browsing.
Supplies. Make sure to pick up a map at the entrance. Bring a pen, some paper and a tape measurer and measurements from home. Color swatches would be great to have if you are trying to match existing upholstery or curtains. I saw one man carrying around a pillow!
What not to bring with you?
Children. Let’s face it. Adults can be miserable furniture shopping, why torture kids too?
Drinks and snacks. There’s a restaurant on premises. If you don’t want to hassle with bringing along food, just order up at the restaurant. (We packed sandwiches, so I don’t know how expensive the food was, or what was on the menu) The coffee shop on the first floor not only offers coffee drinks (and wifi), but spirits as well. If you just need a snack, several of the stores offer freshly baked cookies, Coca-Cola in little glass bottles and water - all complementary. It definitely was refreshing to find a store with snacks inside. Unfortunately, you will have to search for the snack stations because they are hidden, but if you step inside, your nose will be able to spot if you’ve reached jackpot.
What we liked.
The service. Let’s face it. Where can you get good customer service these days? I was thrilled with how the sales personnel approached you, with the exception of a sleazy looking salesman in the Amish furniture store. My favorite sales person was at the Thomasville store. She was informative, very helpful and not pushy at all. When we returned to the store in the afternoon she was visiting with past clients who just came by to chat with her, which in my mind speaks mounds about how she conducts business.
The selection. Since we have little experience shopping for furniture we were able to compare quality and price all in one stop instead of driving all around. Although it was quite a drive for us, we could have easily spent that much time driving from store to store over several weekends.
No crowds. I don’t know if the crowds can get bad here, or not, but we had absolutely no problem with too many people, which was a concern of ours. Maybe it was because we went when the weather was nice, when the weather the following day turned rainy? I don’t really know. I would imagine if it were more crowded we wouldn’t have had such a positive experience.
Overall view…
Is it worth it to drive to Hickory? With so many mainstream furniture stores these days, I don’t think that the prices here were astonishingly low. We went when they were having a Mark Down sale, where most things were 10% off, but for us, we weren’t seeing huge, slashing discounts. However, we were only looking at bedroom furniture and we really didn’t linger long in the stores with clearance and discontinued items. We did see a really neat coffee table for under $300 that we thought was very reasonable. The sales lady said that her store was no longer going to be carrying the item, it was going to another store with a substantial markup. Our leather couch we bought earlier this year (at 45% off) was only $50 cheaper at the Mart, so we feel like we got a good deal. The shipping prices we were quoted, however, are substantially cheaper than what you will find locally and several people I have talked to have had excellent results with their furniture being shipped from the Mart. If you do find something you like, call up the Mart to see how they price it so that you are able to compare.