Investing in An Ergonomic Office Chair: What Are They, Are They Worth It and How Do You Go About Choosing One?

In order to design an ergonomic office chair, a large amount of money in research and development must be invested by companies to ensure that these chairs fit their owners perfectly and that to them, they have made a sound decision to purchase their chairs. The research and development in question involves studying how to keep one comfortable and pain-free, even after sitting down for prolonged hours. 

This involves understanding this principle known as the duality of sitting. To many, the act of sitting in front of a computer desk is not that all complex. However, what goes behind that is the coordination of many complex systems – your bones, muscles, cartilage, tendons, joints and nerves are all collectively involved. Sitting is not as static as you think it is: Remember the times when you were sitting down and you felt a slight discomfort, so you decided to tweak your sitting position? Sitting involves both micro and macro movements, whether is it to maintain your own balance when sitting down or when you decide to move your arms or legs. Additionally, maintaining a seated position for hours and hours on end is not something our bodies are naturally acclimatized to as a large amount of pressure is exerted on the lower areas of our back and spine.

The research and development that goes into intrinsically studying these natural movements and healthful positions while sitting down, ensuring that your body is fully supported and your pains are fully alleviated for extremely long periods of time is one which is a challenging endeavor that requires large amounts of resources and time.

Take for example our flagship product, the ErgoTune Supreme. The ErgoTune Supreme cost nearly 2 years to fully research and develop, while incurring hundreds and thousands of dollars. But as a result, this chair can be easily customized to cater to users from various professions and the respective sitting positions they may adopt. 

Craftsmanship

In addition, you would also be paying for the cost to produce the components, ensuring that a high level of precision is achieved (i.e the components fit together perfectly during assembly) and everything works together smoothly. A high level of quality control is required to ensure that the chair is 100 percent safe to use and poses as little danger as possible. 

Material Costs

Adjustments 
The more adjustments you add to an office chair, the more expensive it will be. This is due to the sunk cost incurred from innovating new built-in tools to increase the customizability of the chair, which includes adjusting recline tension, increasing or decreasing armrest length and altering armrest angles to your preference. Despite the increased cost, it heavily simplifies the process of finding the perfect chair for the end-user as it eliminates the tedious trial and error process one must go through: to spend hours and hours researching which brand is the best and trying out a multitude of chairs just to find one that he or she is satisfied with.  

Upholstery 
Refers to the soft, padded textile covering which is fixed to the chairs. For companies, there will always be a tradeoff between price and quality when it comes to which material to use. While material costs are not a sole contributor as to why an ergonomic chair is expensive, price is still a good indicator when comparing the quality of the upholstery of ergonomic chairs. When it comes to ergonomic chairs, the common materials that are utilized are leather, vinyl, mesh and fabric.  

Leather: The most expensive on this list. Often seen on high-end chairs, some of the finest leather chairs can cost over $5,000. In some cases, the cost of the upholstery is so expensive that it usually costs as much, if not more, than the cost of the other parts of the chair itself. Leather is expensive due to the tedious process required to produce it, particularly tanning. On top of the level of difficulty when it comes to the tanning process, leading to high labor intensity, there is also a high amount of time spent when it comes to finding eligible, higher qualities hides which can be dyed. For example, vegetable tanning, which harnesses natural methods of coloring such as tree bark and tannin, takes approximately 20-30 months. Out of all colors of leather, white leather is the most expensive as it is the most difficult to produce, hence a white leather ergonomic chair would command a substantial price point.

Vinyl: A common substitute to leather, this material usually costs much less and is also more manageable when it comes to cleaning and maintenance. However, do not be too tempted when you see a vinyl chair that is too cheap to be true: low-end vinyl is known to have poor durability, a high tendency to peel and has an extremely distinct odor.

Mesh: Chairs made of mesh have two extremes: They can either be cheap (eg. $50 Amazon Chairs) or they can go up to thousands of dollars. The reason as to why mesh chairs can be this expensive is because they are weaved in with pricey elastomeric materials that gives the mesh high elasticity, which provides you with optimal support, as well as durability, allowing you to use the same chair for many years to come.

Fabric: The prime driving force behind expensive fabric chairs is the extremely high durability of the material. The highest tier of fabric chairs, which can last up to 10 years or more, have a double rub count of over a million. To put things into perspective, a double rub simulates someone sitting down and up. In other words, it takes 1 million sits or more on the chair during its lifetime for it to see any observable wear and tear! The colors you are looking for in a fabric chair would also lead to a much higher cost- bright, multi-color designs or those that offer intricate patterns will cost much more than your average, basic colored chair. Basically, the more design that goes into a fabric, the higher the grade it is and the more it will cost you.

Packaging and Shipping Costs

These costs vary depending on size and brand of chair. For ergonomic office chairs, the packaging cost can range from $15 to $60, which is a relatively small price to pay if you are looking at high-end ergonomic office chairs which can go up to hundreds, or even thousands of dollars. The range of shipping costs can also go from $20 to $100.

The price of packaging would depend on how the chair was packaged prior to delivery. Assembled chairs, for example, would probably take much less packaging than chairs which are shipped in its parts. Additionally, some chairs might contain bigger and bulkier parts than other brands of ergonomic chairs. The quantity of parts also determines how much packaging to use and therefore how much packaging costs are.

Additionally, some companies, as a form of branding, would invest more money into creating packaging that is extremely fancy or unique to create a more exciting experience when unboxing your newly bought chair. However, this also results in a more expensive chair due to the additional packaging costs. 

Warranty

Another reason why the price of a chair appears to be expensive is because of the warranty behind it.

A warranty ensures that for its duration, you would have access to a fully functioning chair no matter what happens to it. For ergonomic office chairs, the price point you are paying for might seem costly, but the matter of the fact is that you are also paying for a strong warranty that ensures you would not have to break the bank just to buy another chair in a few years, or even in a few days’ time.

Additionally, higher end chairs like ergonomic chairs also have a lower chance to breakdown when compared to low-end chairs, giving you the best of both worlds.

For example, the ErgoTune covers you for up to 10 years for its different frames, up to 5 years for its lumbar support/central mechanism and 3 years for more complex mechanisms such as the armrest, casters and gas lift.  

Miscellaneous Costs

Mark-Up
In the supply chain of an ergonomic office chair, it makes business sense that everyone wishes to earn money: From the supplier who provides the raw materials for the chairs, to the manufacturer who produces and assembles the different parts of the chair, to the retailers who assist in the sales and promotion of the chair. What happens as a result is that there would be increments in price through the supply chain as each partner would want to sell at a higher price than what they have spent to the next partner. This eventually results in the final product being much more expensive than its cost price due to it going through these middlemen.

Retail
Some companies might also choose to sell via retail, which further increases the price point of their already expensive office chairs. This is because for retail, there are high overhead costs that need to be borne, such as rental costs, administrative costs and operating costs. As a result, in order to bear these costs, they are passed on to the customer through increasing the prices of their products.

Marketing Cost
For companies to make their chairs known, a significant amount of money is usually invested into marketing. This can come in the form of broadcast advertising, website development and even printing materials such as newsletters or flyers. As a result, for companies to make a sustainable profit, the price of their chairs must be higher in order to compensate for what was invested into marketing it.

Brand Equity
Brand equity refers to the perceived value a customer has of a particular brand name. If customers deem a brand to be of certain prestige or of a high quality, this results in customers being more willing to spend higher amounts of money. In the case of office chairs, this results in high-end chairs being more expensive as customers associate their brand with quality, highly ergonomic chairs that are worthy of a long-term investment.