by Product is designed for toolless assembly and ease of moving into people’s homes
HIGH POINT — Like any new business, Modular Seating Solutions not only sought to fill a void in the marketplace — it also sought to solve an all-too-common problem for retailers and consumers alike.
The problem its owners Matthew Milberg and Jordan Milberg sought to address was the estimated 25% return rates for furniture that doesn’t fit through doors, on elevators or up the stairs of apartments, condominiums and other multistory buildings with small-scale units.
Enter Modular Seating Solutions, which they launched recently after four years of engineering and product development. The company debuted the stationary line in April, but has since expanded with five new arm styles as well as a single motion chair it is showing this market in its showroom in spaces 5J and 5K of the C&D building downtown.
The product is a KD upholstery line that not only can be assembled or broken down in two to three minutes without tools, but also that can be shipped in small parcels directly to the retailer and the consumer.
For example, a chair consisting of a back, a single seat and two arms ships in two boxes, while a loveseat ships in three boxes and a sofa ships in four boxes. The number of boxes for a sectional varies on the size and configuration, but the model is simple: Each pair of arms comes in one box, while each seat module that includes a seat, a back and the seat cushion comes in another box.
Featuring sofas that retail for $699, the line also can be fully customized with seven different arm styles including a high and a low track arm, a slope arm, a roll arm, an oval arm and a large and small flare arm. The consumer also can create an entirely new design whenever they choose with replacement arms instead of buying an entirely new fully assembled sofa from another resource. The seating also is available in fabric and leather.
“One of the important things is that every arm fits on every model and every seat,” Jordan Milberg added. “Everything is interchangeable. It’s quality KD furniture.”
Available to ship on direct containers from China where it is produced, the line is also expandable, allowing a loveseat to transition into a sofa or a three-seat sofa or larger. Pieces can also be built into sectionals with various seat and arm configurations.
Quality steel components are a key aspect of the construction as they bolt the pieces together in a way that keeps the seating — whether a sofa or sectional of any size — both sturdy and stable, not to mention comfortable.
But the major benefit, the Milbergs noted, is the packaging of the product, which allows the consumer to take the boxed sets home in their vehicle and easily move them into their home without any problems getting upstairs, inside elevators or up stairwells.
“This was designed to solve that problem,” said Matt Milberg, adding, “The nice part about this as well is that you can put it in your car, so you don’t need to pay for delivery, necessarily, or have a big truck show up and stand around and wait all day for a furniture delivery. You can load it up into the back of your vehicle and drive it home from the store.”
Jordan Milberg added that the line also has been “reverse engineered” to ship via FedEx or UPS based on their shipping specifications.
“You can take it home in a mini-van,” added Kevin Walker, an e-commerce furniture veteran who is serving as a consultant to the company. “It’s expandable, it’s movable into any home and into any space, anywhere. It’s also a quality story on top of a modular story.”
In the future, the company also plans to expand the line with new arm styles and new motion pieces that offer the consumer an even wider selection.
“We are constantly developing and designing new arms because anything we can imagine and think of we can apply to this product,” Matt Milberg said. “There are very few designs that don’t work with the system we’ve developed.”
