The past few years have seen significant rises in furniture prices in most parts of the world.
Someone going shopping for furniture today, having last done so a few years back is almost sure to be shocked at the prices that are quoted.
A piece of furniture that was going for just a few bucks a years back goes for double, sometimes triple that amount today, in most parts of the world.
Sometimes, you go shopping for furniture, and the price that is quoted to you sounds so unbelievable that you ask the vendor to quote again - just to be sure that you heard the right thing.
To the critical thinker, all this begs the question as to what, really is behind this rise in prices of furniture all over the world over the last few years.
One of the factors behind the rising prices of furniture in the recent years, it would seem, is the growing scarcity of the materials out of which the furniture is made - especially wood.
As we may recall, the past few years have seen considerable growth in awareness about the environmental crisis that is staring right at us, a crisis which is caused by among other things, wanton destruction of forests.
Consequently, we have seen many national jurisdictions opting to restrict or simply outlaw logging.
This has resulted in a fall in supply of wood from which most furniture is made.
And as the economists tell us, where supply falls with demand remaining the same, it is almost inevitable that prices go up.
Another factor behind the rising prices of furniture all over the world is the growing realization of the real value of their products that makers of furniture have been experiencing in the last few years.
This is where many of them come to realize that their products are, in fact, quite indispensable -and that if they engage in 'value addition' they can still get good prices out of their products.
Out of all this, we end up with a situation where the furniture vendors form associations that cartels in all but name, where 'value based' prices are informally agreed upon and then quite seriously enforced.
It is out of this that you find a piece of furniture going for X dollars here, and when you go to another vendor, you still find the same item going for the same X dollars - as if the price was agreed upon after a consultative process.
There has also been a growth in real demand of furniture (the falling supply of the material used to make the furniture notwithstanding).
As the consumerist culture keeps on growing, and as more and more people develop a taste for 'fine living' the end result is where furniture is no longer seen for its practical use alone, but also as something as a 'statement of well being.
' The end result is the situation where furniture starts manifesting the odd price-demand-supply mechanisms associated with what are termed as 'prestige' goods; where prices are often not direct reflections of the practical value of an item, but also of the 'prestige' factor in the furniture items.
Someone going shopping for furniture today, having last done so a few years back is almost sure to be shocked at the prices that are quoted.
A piece of furniture that was going for just a few bucks a years back goes for double, sometimes triple that amount today, in most parts of the world.
Sometimes, you go shopping for furniture, and the price that is quoted to you sounds so unbelievable that you ask the vendor to quote again - just to be sure that you heard the right thing.
To the critical thinker, all this begs the question as to what, really is behind this rise in prices of furniture all over the world over the last few years.
One of the factors behind the rising prices of furniture in the recent years, it would seem, is the growing scarcity of the materials out of which the furniture is made - especially wood.
As we may recall, the past few years have seen considerable growth in awareness about the environmental crisis that is staring right at us, a crisis which is caused by among other things, wanton destruction of forests.
Consequently, we have seen many national jurisdictions opting to restrict or simply outlaw logging.
This has resulted in a fall in supply of wood from which most furniture is made.
And as the economists tell us, where supply falls with demand remaining the same, it is almost inevitable that prices go up.
Another factor behind the rising prices of furniture all over the world is the growing realization of the real value of their products that makers of furniture have been experiencing in the last few years.
This is where many of them come to realize that their products are, in fact, quite indispensable -and that if they engage in 'value addition' they can still get good prices out of their products.
Out of all this, we end up with a situation where the furniture vendors form associations that cartels in all but name, where 'value based' prices are informally agreed upon and then quite seriously enforced.
It is out of this that you find a piece of furniture going for X dollars here, and when you go to another vendor, you still find the same item going for the same X dollars - as if the price was agreed upon after a consultative process.
There has also been a growth in real demand of furniture (the falling supply of the material used to make the furniture notwithstanding).
As the consumerist culture keeps on growing, and as more and more people develop a taste for 'fine living' the end result is where furniture is no longer seen for its practical use alone, but also as something as a 'statement of well being.
' The end result is the situation where furniture starts manifesting the odd price-demand-supply mechanisms associated with what are termed as 'prestige' goods; where prices are often not direct reflections of the practical value of an item, but also of the 'prestige' factor in the furniture items.