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In January, I received an email from a frustrated furniture shopper.
“Months ago, my new wife and I ordered a bed frame and headboard for our new top-of-the-line Tempurpedic mattress,” J.B. Harris, a shopper and reader in Florida, lamented. Though they received their mattress within a reasonable time frame, the bed frame and headboard were missing in action. “It’s been an existential nightmare, as confounding as Samuel Beckett’s
Waiting for Godot.”
When I reconnected with Harris in April, he had finally received his shipment after many months of waiting. “West Elm has the worst supply chain issues of any retailer I have ever experienced,” he told me. “My advice to West Elm shoppers: If you cannot buy an item from a showroom floor, expect to wait weeks if not months to receive it.” He and his wife slept on a mattress on the floor fo