Today, FurnitureSG is an online furniture store in Singapore that sells beds, mattresses, sofas and dining sets to homes across Singapore, with free delivery and installation, a 10% price-beat guarantee and a warehouse in Marsiling.
What it does not have is a showroom. It never had.
Customers buy beds and mattresses from FurnitureSG without ever lying on them first. And many of them come back for more. It has worked this way for 17 years. And it started with two friends from the NTU hall.
How Two NTU Hall Mates Ended Up Selling Furniture Online
Mr Tan and Mr Tee met at NTU, where they lived in the same hall of residence.
After graduating, they went in very different directions. Mr Tee went into IT. Mr Tan went into construction. Neither of them grew up dreaming of running a business.
“I would say I became an entrepreneur by accident, not by plan.” says Mr Tan
What brought them together was a gap they could both see from different angles.
Mr Tee’s family was in furniture retail, so he knew how the industry worked from the inside. And as someone in IT, he could see where shopping was heading. Online shopping was on the rise. Furniture, though, was still mostly sold the old way, in furniture showrooms.
There was a gap for online furniture in Singapore. So in 2009, Mr Tan and Mr Tee jumped in and started FurnitureSG.
The Customer Who Wouldn’t Let the Delivery Man Leave
In the beginning, FurnitureSG went wherever customers already were. Mr Tan and Mr Tee listed their furniture on every marketplace they could find and marketed it on social media.
Deliveries were outsourced to a third-party logistics company.
The orders came. In fact, more came than they had planned for.
They had underestimated demand, and their supplier’s stock could not keep up. Orders that customers expected quickly could take a week to fulfil. Customers were left waiting, and some of them were upset.
One delivery has stayed with them.
A customer received a brand new metal bed and found a scratch on it. They refused to let the delivery man leave until the scratch was resolved.
It might have been a small scratch. But to that customer, it was a new bed for their home, one they had bought without ever seeing it in person. They had trusted FurnitureSG, and what arrived was not what they expected.
Mr Tan did not look for anyone else to blame. He took responsibility, and worked to put things right for every customer who had been let down.
“Customers were waiting, some were upset, and I felt really bad. It was our fault.”
But fixing those orders was only the first step. He knew something had to change, so it would not happen again.
The Reason They Never Invested in a Furniture Showroom
Mr Tan and Mr Tee sat down and made a decision that would shape the business from then on. They would rather grow slower than disappoint people.
“That was when we understood that in this business, trust is everything.”
For an online furniture store, trust carries even more weight. Customers cannot walk into a showroom, sit on the sofa or lie on the mattress. They have to believe that what arrives at their door will be what they paid for.
That same thinking explains why FurnitureSG has never invested in a showroom.
In Singapore, a lot of what people pay for furniture goes towards showroom rent and big overheads. By staying fully online, FurnitureSG does not carry those costs, and passes the savings on to customers as honest prices.
The money saved goes into things customers actually care about. Furniture delivery and installation are free, because surprise charges at the end of a purchase are frustrating, and no one should have to carry a bed frame up the stairs themselves. And to take the guesswork out of whether they are getting a fair deal, FurnitureSG offers a 10% price-beat guarantee.
Most of their customers are young couples setting up their first BTO flat or rental, young families, and practical households who want value for money.
Today, FurnitureSG is rated 4.9 stars across more than 2,000 Google reviews. Most of them mention the same things: fast delivery, responsive service and fair prices.
Many customers come back. For a second mattress. For a bunk bed when the kids get older.
“They value being treated fairly, and not being sold to by salespeople at showrooms whose commissions depend on how much they sell.”
Why Mr Tan Still Delivers Furniture Himself After 17 Years
After 17 years, FurnitureSG could easily run without its founders on the ground.
Mr Tan still replies to customers’ WhatsApp messages. And sometimes, he still makes deliveries and installs the furniture himself.
It is not because he has to. It is because he wants to see the business the way his customers do.
Being on the ground lets him experience the daily operations first-hand, and hear feedback directly from the people FurnitureSG serves, instead of reading it in a report.
It may also explain something unusual about their journey. Asked whether there was ever a point when they nearly gave up, Mr Tan’s answer was one word.
“Nope.”
The Lesson Mr Tan and Mr Tee Carry
Mr Tan and Mr Tee did not build FurnitureSG overnight. They built it on the kind of trust that only comes from doing the basics right, year after year.
Their goal is simple: to be the furniture store Singaporeans trust, with honest and affordable prices, no hidden charges, and good service even when something goes wrong.
“If a customer’s first home is furnished with us and they come back years later when they upgrade, that’s what I would call a win.”
If you are looking for an affordable furniture store in Singapore, make sure you browse around at FurnitureSg’s official website here.
And to anyone sitting on an idea of their own, Mr Tan’s advice comes from 17 years of learning on the job.
“Don’t wait until everything is perfect, because it never will be. Start small, be honest with your customers, and expect to make mistakes. Just make sure you can survive them.”
