Buying chairs in Polokwane from a supplier whose warehouse sits in Cape Town shouldn’t feel like a gamble, and it doesn’t have to.
Furniture delivery in South Africa is where a lot of good orders go wrong. The chairs are right, the price is right, and then the freight quote lands and it’s half the value of the order, or the pallet arrives three weeks late with two cartons missing. Chair Crazy has been shipping chairs, stools, tables and loungers around the country since 2003, from branches in Cape Town and Johannesburg, so here’s exactly how it works: what it costs, how long it takes, and what to check when the truck pulls up.
What furniture delivery in South Africa actually costs
There’s no mystery number waiting for you at checkout. Every product carries its own delivery fee, and you can see it in your shopping cart before you pay for anything. Ordering four dining chairs to Sea Point costs less to move than a table and eight chairs to Bloemfontein, and the cart reflects that rather than averaging it out.
Two caps keep the number sensible. Deliveries to the main centres (Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, Nelspruit and George) are capped at R950 per order, no matter how much you buy. If you’re outside those centres, a R250 surcharge is added automatically and the total delivery charge is capped at R1200 including that surcharge. So the worst case for a farm guesthouse outside Clarens or a lodge near Hoedspruit is R1200, not an open-ended quote.
Chair Crazy delivers to every city and town inside South Africa’s borders. Occasionally a remote or high-risk address falls outside the courier network, and in those cases you’ll get a call to sort out an alternative arrangement before the order is dispatched, not a silent cancellation two weeks later. The full terms live on the delivery information page.
How long delivery takes, and what happens in between
Budget roughly 7-14 days for furniture orders. Deliveries run on weekdays during normal business hours, and public holidays don’t count towards that window, which matters when you’re planning a December opening around the 16th and 25th.
The legs between the warehouse and your door are handled by contracted third-party transporters with a national network, which is the reason a single order can leave Killarney Gardens and land in Nelspruit without being handed between four different couriers. If you want to know where your order is, phone 021 552 2674 and the team will track it for you rather than sending you off to a courier reference number you can’t interpret.
One practical point for restaurateurs: the 7-14 day window starts when you order, not when you decide you like the chair. If you’re opening on a fixed date, order the seating before the shopfitting is finished, not after. Chairs are the item that most often holds up a launch, and they’re also the item people leave until last.
A furniture store in Cape Town and Johannesburg, with stock in both
Chair Crazy runs a showroom in the Cape Town city bowl, a warehouse on the West Coast side of the city, and a combined showroom and warehouse in Midrand for Gauteng. That second branch is the difference between a national supplier and a Cape Town supplier with a courier account. Gauteng orders ship from Gauteng stock where it’s available, which shortens the trip and reduces the number of times a carton gets moved.
The showrooms matter more than you’d expect for commercial buyers. Specifying forty chairs from a photograph is a good way to discover that the seat depth is wrong for your tables or that the back is a fraction too upright for a long lunch service. Sit in the chair first. Cape Town buyers can do that in Gardens or at the Killarney Gardens warehouse, Gauteng buyers at Halfway House, and there are agents in Port Elizabeth, East London and KwaZulu-Natal for everyone in between.
The products that travel best
Freight cost is mostly a function of volume, so the chairs that stack are the chairs that ship cheaply. That’s worth knowing before you fall in love with something bulky.
The Maya Chair is the obvious example. It’s a polypropylene side chair rated for indoor and outdoor use, it stacks, and a set of them travels in a fraction of the space a timber equivalent needs. It’s also UV-stabilised, which means the set you send to a Durban patio won’t chalk out after one season.
Maya Chair: stackable polypropylene, indoor and outdoor rated
The Air Bar Stool does the same job at bar height. It’s light enough to carry up a flight of stairs one-handed, which is a genuine consideration if your bar is on a first floor with no lift, and light stock is cheaper stock to move across the country.
Air Bar Stool: lightweight polypropylene, easy to move and easy to ship
For a heavier commercial look, the Tom Bar Stool at 75cm suits a standard bar counter, and the Minx PP Chair covers the dining side for cafes doing high turnover. Both are workhorses rather than statement pieces, and both stack. If freight is a real constraint on your budget, start in the polypropylene chairs range and work outwards from there.
Ordering for a restaurant or hotel fit-out
Volume orders behave a little differently. If you need sixty chairs in two colours and the second colour is on the water, it’s usually better to phase the delivery than to hold the whole order until everything lands. Say so when you place the order and the team can split it. The same goes for sites that can’t receive a full truck, which is most Cape Town city bowl restaurants with no loading bay and a two-hour parking bay out front.
It’s also worth flagging access problems early. A first-floor restaurant with a narrow stair, a secure estate that needs prior notice at the gate, a Midrand office park that closes its gates at 16:00: all of these turn a straightforward delivery into a failed one if nobody knows in advance. A two-line note when you order saves a redelivery.
What to check on delivery day
Five minutes at the truck saves a fortnight of email. Work through this before you sign anything.
- Count the cartons against the waybill. The carton count won’t match your item count, because more than one item is often packed together. Two dining chairs regularly share a carton. Check cartons against the waybill number, not against your order.
- Look for visible damage before you sign. Crushed corners, torn board, anything that rattles. A quick walk around each carton is enough.
- Write any discrepancy on the waybill itself. A note on the waybill at the point of delivery is the record that matters. A phone call the next day without it is much harder to resolve.
- Report problems within 48 hours. Damage or a short delivery needs to reach Chair Crazy within 48 hours of receipt, so don’t leave sealed cartons in a store room until the weekend.
- Be reachable on the day. The transporters will make a reasonable number of arrangements to complete the delivery, but after that the goods head back to the warehouse and you’ll be paying to send them out again.
Ready to order from anywhere in South Africa?
Whether you’re furnishing a guesthouse in Knysna, a coffee shop in Braamfontein or a patio in Umhlanga, the range ships to your door on the same terms. Browse the hospitality range to see what’s in stock, or talk to the team about a fit-out.
Browse Hospitality Furniture →
Home buyers can start with the dining chairs range instead.
Visit us in person:
Cape Town Showroom: 100 Upper Canterbury Road, Gardens (opposite Roeland Square), 021 465 9991
Cape Town Warehouse: Unit 2, Blitz Park, Potsdam Road, Killarney Gardens, 021 552 2674
Johannesburg Showroom and Warehouse: Unit 2, Waterfall Crossing, 491 James Crescent, Halfway House, 011 882 0160
[email protected]
