Office chairs. The choices are endless. Website after website all claiming to have the best products at the lowest prices. But for those of you not in the industry, all the jargon and promises can be a little overwhelming when all you actually want is just a chair that'll do the job and hopefully won't cost the earth. Simple right?
Unfortunately not. With waves of cheap office chairs flooding onto the market from places all over the world you can be taking a bit of a risk just buying one you like the look of. Hopefully after reading this article we should be able to make that choice a little bit easier for you.
The first thing you really need to do is forget the cheap plastic junk that retails for 25 quid (or less on EBay). Usually these office chairs are not tested, have no guarantee and will last you 12 months if you're lucky. Worse still they usually have poor designs that may even cause back problems. Stay well away. If it doesn't come with at least 5 years guarantee I wouldn't take it. If the seller hasn't even got faith in their own product, why should you have?
I'd also check and see what sort of testing has been performed on the chair to ensure it will last. A guarantee is all well and good, but ideally you'd like not to have to use it! So has the manufacturer tested their chairs for strength and durability. And while we're on the subject of testing, have the fabrics been tested and are they fire retardant? Again a minor point often overlooked.
Next point is foam. How thick is the foam on the seat and back. It seems some manufacturers are giving chairs away that have so little foam they'd give the average computer operator piles!! Have a look at the picture and if in doubt give them a call and ask how thick the foam on the seat and back is. Last thing you want is to buy 100 chairs for a call centre and find they're all horrid to sit in.
Of course you can also look at the various adjustable features of the chair you are looking at and compare different chairs. So at this point we get on to the subject of price. How much should you spend on an office chair? Well that's much like asking how long is a piece of string, but if you're asking what is the minimum you can spend and get a fairly decent office chair for I would say for a brand new chair you'd be looking at around 50 GBP.
Where ever you choose to buy your office chair from, just be sure to keep in mind the points I've raised in this article and you shouldn't go too far wrong.