I dunno, but "design" sofas aren't that bad. Of course, you pay for this. My modular Cor Trio sofa has a list price of 6,500€ in the configuration I own. See [1] for a simpler one.
One contributing factor is the fabric you choose. But the biggest one is labor. The wooden construction uses only solid wood too but that is the least cost either way.
What I did when buying it is that I made a list of all design furniture shops in Berlin that sold Cor.
Then I drove to each of them and asked: this is my best price from your competitors. What is yours? In the end I actually paid 4,500€. I also learned the margin is ~45% of the list price for the shop.
Which gives you an idea about material and labor prices when you produce in Europe. I.e. Cor sells this to the shop for around 3k€. That already includes their margin. I would think producing this has costs of at least 50% of that attached. I.e. 1.5k€ for labor and materials.
I just started helping a friend re-produce an old design classic of his [2] as WFH has made requests for it spike. It's not a sofa, strictly speaking, but the changes in costs probably make it worth mentioning them in this context.
When we produced the first series, ca. 2004, we had material, CNC and labor costs of around 1,000€. Without upholstery. Upholstery varies greatly depending on finish. Different fabrics and leathers have very different prices and labor costs attached.
We are now looking at over 4k€ for labor and wood (it's made of Ceiba which is difficulty to source). I.e. we have a ~300% raise in production costs over 20 years in Europe (not counting upholstery!).
If we wanted to keep the previous price, we needed to switch to cheaper wood and move production outside of Europe. At the moment we are just considering targeting a wealthier clientele. Not everyone has this luxury though.
I guess I'm saying I dunno how much these factors play a role in the enshittification of sofas everywhere. But they probably do ... :]
One contributing factor is the fabric you choose. But the biggest one is labor. The wooden construction uses only solid wood too but that is the least cost either way.
What I did when buying it is that I made a list of all design furniture shops in Berlin that sold Cor.
Then I drove to each of them and asked: this is my best price from your competitors. What is yours? In the end I actually paid 4,500€. I also learned the margin is ~45% of the list price for the shop.
Which gives you an idea about material and labor prices when you produce in Europe. I.e. Cor sells this to the shop for around 3k€. That already includes their margin. I would think producing this has costs of at least 50% of that attached. I.e. 1.5k€ for labor and materials.
I just started helping a friend re-produce an old design classic of his [2] as WFH has made requests for it spike. It's not a sofa, strictly speaking, but the changes in costs probably make it worth mentioning them in this context.
When we produced the first series, ca. 2004, we had material, CNC and labor costs of around 1,000€. Without upholstery. Upholstery varies greatly depending on finish. Different fabrics and leathers have very different prices and labor costs attached.
We are now looking at over 4k€ for labor and wood (it's made of Ceiba which is difficulty to source). I.e. we have a ~300% raise in production costs over 20 years in Europe (not counting upholstery!).
If we wanted to keep the previous price, we needed to switch to cheaper wood and move production outside of Europe. At the moment we are just considering targeting a wealthier clientele. Not everyone has this luxury though.
I guess I'm saying I dunno how much these factors play a role in the enshittification of sofas everywhere. But they probably do ... :]
[1] https://www.prooffice.de/shop/cor-trio-sofa.html
[2] https://www.saschaulber.com/shop/coffy/