Ordering bar stools is mostly a matter of deciding three numbers and then refusing to let anyone change them quietly. Here is what those numbers are, and where the specification usually slips.
Six questions that move the price
The same bar stools can be quoted at two very different numbers and both be honest. The gap is usually in six places: frame material, joint method, foam density, finish system, packing standard and the seat height itself.
Ask which of the six the quote assumes. Suppliers who cannot separate them are quoting a category rather than a product.
Height and base, before anything else
Start with 750 to 800 mm under a bar counter, 600 to 650 mm under a poseur table. Quotes that do not state the seat height have not yet established what is being bought, and every other number after it is provisional.
Then the base: four legs with stretchers, or a column on a disc base. The base decides stability, the floor loading and how the piece is packed. It also decides whether the price is comparable at all, because a column base and a four-leg base are different products at the same nominal size.
Sampling and what it should cost
A sample should arrive with the drawing it was built from and the finish code applied to it. Without the drawing, a good sample proves nothing about the production run.
Expect sampling to be chargeable and the cost credited against a first order. Free samples are usually stock pieces, and stock is not evidence about a custom height or a custom finish.
Lead time, stated in stages
Ask for the production window broken into drawing approval, material in, build, finishing and packing. One lead-time number hides where the delay will happen, and the delay is almost always in finishing rather than in the frame.
Add the transit leg separately. Production windows that end at the factory gate are not a delivery date, and the difference matters most on a fit-out with a fixed opening date.
The answers worth walking away from
Vague on the load test. No drawing before production. Seat height treated as a styling choice. Packing described as 'standard export'. Any one is workable on its own; all four together means nobody is holding the specification.
Our own process is published as how we work, including where the drawing approval and the pre-shipment inspection sit in the sequence.
Where these figures can be checked
A quotation is only comparable if it names the same standards. The bar stools pages carry the dimensions, including custom heights, and the finish range is set out under materials and finishes.
Load and material reports sit alongside each other in quality and compliance rather than in separate documents, and the route from approved drawing to packed crate is described in how we work.
Where a room mixes heights, the bar chairs are usually the piece that gets specified last and fits worst, so settle them in the same drawing round.
Questions buyers ask
What should the drawing contain?
Seat height, footrest or base height, overall height and the load test that applies. For bar stools, also confirm 750 to 800 mm under a bar counter, 600 to 650 mm under a poseur table.
Should I pay for a sample?
Expect to. Chargeable samples built to your drawing are evidence. Free stock samples is not.
How long should a quote take?
A day or two for a catalogue item, longer where a custom height or finish is involved, because the frame has to be re-checked against the new dimension.