Futon Company

A very pleasant shopping experience from start to finish. We have now turned our 2 bed flat into a spacious home that we can welcome two sets of guests to stay with us comfortably at the same time. In conjunction with modernising our living room and making our sofa much more comfy for when it is just the two of us. The best thing about it all is the ease of conversion when we need. Patricia the shop manager was ever so helpful and really went out of her way to help accommodate our needs. She creates such interesting shop displays so out of place in Norwich, what a friendly place to shop.

This is a beautiful shop with smartly designed and elegant furniture at reasonable prices.

The atmosphere in the shop is relaxed. You can browse in your own time without someone coming over to push a sale on to you. It is not that the staff are uninterested, they are friendly and professional and let you know that they are there to assist and advise and let you get on with it.

You are much more inclined to buy in that happy atmosphere than make a purchase when you are being stalked around the shop in a manner that makes you remember when you were 15 years old and were being pursued around the bushier parts of Chapelfield Gardens, by a man with halitosis and a packet of mint humbugs.

Patricia the manager gets some harsh comments on Google. I am puzzled why that should be. Perhaps the more we celebrate diversity, the less tolerance we have for folk who are actually not cut from the same mindset as everyone else?

Patricia was very helpful, friendly and professional as too was her wonderful assistant Archie. The Futon, cabinets and "ladder" we bought combine practicality, comfort, style and price.

Much of the furniture is self assembly. It is not so difficult and i say that as someone who is so thick that he makes the proverbial two planks seem as slender as bamboo poles. It helps if you take plenty of photos of the furniture you have assemble, it give you a template to work from. All in all, a well deserved 5 stars.

A sub optimal sofa combined with a sub optimal bed. The worst of both worlds, the best of neither.
Terrible customer service- Store manager rude, patronising, dismissive, doesn't listen, laughs (literally laughs) off concerns.
If you envision the best customer service experience of your life, then imagine the exact opposite, you've got a picture of what it's like dealing with this company.
I got nowhere when attempting to talk to Futon Company, hence this review.

Racist staff at Norwich store….

I’ve been to browse at the Futon Company store in Norwich about three times in the last six months and unfortunately each time I’ve experienced strong feelings of hostility from the staff there, even when they’ve been open welcoming to other (white) customers in the store at the time. I’ve also been followed around the store or watched hyper closely as I’ve browsed the shop (without any accompanying offers of help).

In the last couple of years I’ve started to highlight this type racist behaviour on shops when I come across it, in the hope that it will inform others and allow folks to me make more informed choices about when they shop.

This is the forth time I’ve left such a review in nearly three years, as I only do it on those occasions where I feel very upset by the experience).

I for one won’t be spending my money in the Norwich branch of the Futon Company, and would encourage other people of colour and people of principle to avoid it too, as it’s only really by impacting these businesses financially that will lead them to change their behaviours or train their staff how to treat all customers properly in our multicultural world.

I’ve been a customer of the Futon Company for many years now and like their products, and I’d happily recommend their stores in Cambridge and various London locations, but now I’ve moved to Norfolk I’ll only use the Norwich store to browse products going forward, and will make sure I buy online so that branch doesn’t benefit from the sale……

Good quality stuff, quite costly though, so you have to wait for a good deal. Nice friendly staff too

Great quality products that are good value in the frequent futon company sales. The real star was Patricia, the store manager, who went way above and beyond to help some new parents get the right bedding for much needed sleep. Bedding was excellent and I’ve never met a more kind/helpful store manager – thank you!

So many nice things in this shop and lots of practical ideas for storage. I think the designs are great for areas where space is limited and they regularly have sales. I bought the Tingle futon in a sale and a few textile items

I thought it would be good to write a review two years after kitting our home out with mostly Futon Company furniture. It's an honest review of how well the furniture holds up over time. I do think that some reviews on here may have been made before fully evaluating, possibly.
The woodwork is amazing, but you do pay for it. We mostly bought Oak and it was expensive, but it looks lovely and has kept it's fresh look over two years. We also bought a little sofa for another room which folds down into a single bed. The two ends fold down and it extends to a good size. Unfortunately the ends down fold down fully so your feet and head are raised slightly, not a problem for your head but it really hurts your knees if you are lying on your back. The only option is to lay on your front and this means that your back takes the hit. So, not really a great bed. The sofa is fine, looks a little cheap in the pine and I definitely think this is overpriced.
The actual futon is comfy but it sits at a dead 90 degree angle, so sitting for long periods of time without turning it into half bed is uncomfortable.

We bought the beautiful oak sofa futon that turns into a double bed. It's a great double bedd but the bend in the middle from it being a sofa for the most part is quite annoying if two people are using it.
The frame is oak and it is a work of art. It's gorgeous! It is pitched as a simple to make bed but it often takes two people and I'm not exactly small.
To sit on this sofa for a long time (1.5 hours +) you NEED a pillow to support your lower back. I'm mid thirties and very fit yet this makes me ache! With a pillow it is comfortable enough, not amazing but pretty good. It was pricey but not too pricey, I think it was about right (If they threw in a nice comfy long pillow (Which is a lot more money).

The double bed (King size, I think, might be bigger) again is well constructed. It's oak, nice design where things slot into eachother. As a bed it has a real sense of style.
We opted to have the tatami mats, definitely worth it but it's a lot of work. You definitely have to air them regularly and moving that massive futon can be frustrating. It's a two person job and it doesn't have handles.
The bed is comfy, I like it. But if you are sleeping alongside a partner then you will have a bump develop in the middle. I've had futons in the past and this has never been an issue in the past. Might be a flaw in their design.
The futon does have two sides, hard and soft. I like both but it's a bit confusing which is which. So, when I've aired it I come up a couple of hours later and it's hard to work out which side we slept on last.

All in all we are happy but the products have lots of little niggles.