This is a great post. You are quite right - the online office chair marketplace is quite glutted. (But you wouldn’t know it from the point of view of the buyer, because buyers are having considerable difficulty finding the right chair online.) Online office chair retailers and distributors should take more care to describe their products in a way that buyers will understand.

As a UK-based online office chair retailer, I find that the market over here is just as bad as it is in the US. Buyers are confronted with a lot of choice, yet it is hard to differentiate between them all to choose the right chair. The matter is compounded by cheaper imports from the Far East which make the Europe-made (and US-made) items look very expensive.

I would advise office chair buyers to read the descriptions carefully and look at offerings from several different suppliers before making a purchase. Try to understand the office-chair-speak used in the descriptions, and then call the retailers of your chosen chairs for further clarification.

Sometimes the online retailer/distributor will have a showroom (, sometimes it will be the manufacturer’s or importer’s showroom), so you can try the chairs before you buy. In the UK, if you are buying a specialist ergonomic chair or heavy duty chair, some retailers/distributors will send a sales representative to demo the chair to you if you cannot visit a showroom. Or they will allow you to try the chair out for 5 days or 10 days.

In summary, you have to search through the online market very keenly, talk to retailers/distributors, and see if you can try the chair before you buy. Your health and your work output are dependent on it.