The 'Nehru Place' of wooden furniture in Ghaziabad. Review on Ghaziabad

I required a shoe rack and a center table for my house and inflation and the recession had led me into looking for some discounted furniture and I was ok with refurbished furniture.

I began my hunt on OLX website as well as looked at options in some furniture shops that sell old furniture. I wasn’t impressed with the price at which these items were given. They were barely 25% lesser than the market rates for new stuff.

To add to it, the stuffs sold in OLX were at such far off locations that transporting them would by itself add up to the full price of the items. I had almost given up and thought of directly going to a furniture showroom and having them home deliver it, when I called up a friend who is shrewd in getting bargain deals. He said there is this popular furniture market on Ramte Ram road in Ghaziabad where stuffs would be cheaper than any deal offered all over Ghaziabad. He said this was sort of a hub from where all furniture dealers in Noida and Ghaziabad obtained their stuffs from.

Ghaziabad has one big setback that most of the things, markets and places of interest do not have an online presence. There are plenty of interesting places and historical buildings to visit in Ghaziabad but they are listed nowhere on the web. Only a person who has lived here or has traveled a lot in the city knows about these places. My visit to this market proved the point. This Ramte Ram road is located on the Delhi – Hapur highway near Vijay Nagar. It is a narrow crowded lane lined with dozens of furniture shops – both big and small. One can find all kinds of furniture starting from plastic footstools to king-size beds and couches.

At the outset, I should warn the readers that though many of the shops look like ultra-expensive showrooms, do not hesitate visiting any of them because they all are open to attending to buyers of inexpensive items. Second, you need to bargain well – and I mean really well – to strike a good deal. Going by your appearance, the salesmen over quote the prices and you need to make it clear to them that you are not looking for super-expensive furniture. The long and short of it is that, you can take it for granted that whatever furniture you want, you need to push to get it sold to you at a price at least 15-20% lesser than what they quote.

So let’s say a table is being offered to you at Rs 3000. You should say you would only pay Rs 2000 for it so that you can get it finalized at Rs 2500-2600. People who visit Palika Bazaar in Delhi would know what I am talking about.

Coming to prices and comparison of the items here with those in other furniture shops – the stuffs here are priced at least 30% lesser than what you get at even an ordinary furniture shop in areas of Noida and Ghaziabad. The dealers do not arrange to have the items free-home delivered but they can get a transporter or a rickshaw puller arranged.

I would suggest that though these rickshaw pullers over-charge, it is safer to go with someone the furniture shop recommends because they are known to them and you don’t have to worry about the transporters fleeing with your items. It is better to be safe paying 100 Rs extra than be sorry about having lost your items worth thousands.

To cite some examples that give a better picture of what the prices are – a computer table that might cost you between 3-4 thousand rupees in an ordinary shop anywhere in Delhi and NCR, can be bought from here after bargaining at Rs 2200-2400. A sofa-set that may cost around Rs 22-25000 Rs can be obtained from here at maybe 16-18000 Rs after bargaining. If you buy more than one piece of furniture, you can demand a better bargain. As for the varieties, there is no dearth at all.

This being a market primarily dealing with wooden furniture, leather furniture and couches are scarce. Teak wood, rubber wood and what is locally known as Sagwan wood are majorly used in making these furniture. The quality of the stuff is certainly very good. This being a typical desi market would need you to be alert and inspect the items and check for the weight and standard of the material. In big showrooms, they do not stock enough varieties of an item and often a item that you like may be scratched and they would say they do not have another piece leaving you disappointed.

However, most of the shops here have large go-downs where they stock several pieces of the same design and you can pick any of them. In fact, even if they don’t they can take you to another furniture shop that has the same item and obtain it for you.

Conclusively I would say that a visit to this place is certainly worth the effort despite the fact that you need to do a big of browsing around in many shops to get the best deal and item. But yet in the end the fruit of the labour is definitely tasty because you can be assured of a good deal on a high-quality piece of furniture. Unlike in the furniture chains where the cheapest furniture are of ultra-light wood, you can be assured of the best quality of wood being used in all the items sold here.

Everyone in Delhi and NCR knows that Nehru Place is the hub of computers and accessories and this is where you can get the best bargain in the country. This place – Ramte Ram road furniture market is the Nehru Place of wooden furniture.