2020 has been the year of online shopping but if I'm being completely honest, online shopping has always been my jam — more choices, less people. Granted there's nothing that can fully replace the in person experience of shopping and engaging all of your senses as you make your decision, but sometimes online is all you have...like during a global a pandemic or when you're shopping an e-tailer like one of my favs, Apt2B. 

Earlier this year I began the hunt for a brand new sofa for our family, something I'd daydreamed about for a while but never really committed to since my living room left me uninspired more often than now. 

You can read about my journey with the living room here by the way. 

Now that I'd fully embraced my living room for what it was while understanding how I can make it serve us, it was a no brainer than our sofa would be from Apt2B. Their fabric, style, and size assortment made it the perfect choice for us. In replacing our previous storage sleeper sectional, we knew that our next sofa would definitely need to move with us — no more shopping for just now... I was shopping for longevity. 

But how do you shop for a sofa online — pandemic or not — when you can't see it in person, feel the upholstery, or sit on it to do a comfort test?

I gotchu...

Order Free Fabrics

What first sold me on Apt2B. as an e-designer (which feels like lifetimes ago) was the fabric assortment — tailored woven, poly soft, vintage woven, poly nylon, crisp woven, microfiber, performance velvet, poly woven, plush woven, basket woven — and all in a rainbow of hues... literally, the whole ROYGBV + neutrals! 

Let's be honest...colors on a screen mean almost nothing, because while they're a good starting point, you need to see the fabric with your own two eyeballs...in your space, against the walls, with your lighting.

Apt2B lets you order up to 10 swatches at a time — for free! — so that you can make a fully informed decision on your sofa. What does that mean? It means you can not just put your swatches through a color test — aka do you still love the color you saw on your screen — but it also means test it's durability and cleanability. After hanging my sofa contenders on the wall for weeks, we narrowed down the colors by how the fabrics actual felt against our skin, then I made a mess...literally. I chose the 4 liquids we're most likely to spill on the sofa — water, orange juice, red wine, and coffee — and poured them on each of the swatches.

While they all cleaned just fine, the swatch I was most favoring — Cloud Velvet — left no evidence of the messes I made...like it never happened. No brick and mortar retailer would let me use spill things on their sofa so didn't lose out by not having an "in-person" experience with my fabrics.

Go Through Reviews & Customer Photos

I do this with every site, every retailer, and it's super invaluable. And it may seem like such a "duh" recommendation, but the focus here is less about the reviews (which are definitely important) but more about the pictures. I actually et highly annoyed when I comb through dozens (maybe even hundreds) of reviews and not a single one has a photo uploaded.

Why are the photos important?

Simply put it's for the real life context. Yes, someone can tell me how in love they are with the sofa and how it's the most comfortable ever, but seeing it in their actual space provides a lot more context. I can see how the color shows up in different environments. I can get a sense of how that sofa style plays well with difference aesthetics. And depending on the date of the review, I can even assess how well it's held up over time.

When a company takes photos of their products it's in a controlled environment -- i.e. a studio -- and staged to the max. Nothing can take the place of seeing your fav fabric and/or sofa pick in other homes before bringing it into your own.

This is research you can easily do while you're waiting for your free swatches.

Read The Full Construction Description

While this tip may also seem obvious, most people only stop at the basic description. The really clever copy and maybe the dimensions. I'm talking about everything that comes after the view/read more button...

• Custom made in Los Angeles, CA (made in USA)

• Eco-friendly construction

• Solid wood frame

• Cleanable and breathable hypoallergenic fabrics

• Reversible and flippable detached cushioning

• Zippered, removable cushion covers for easy cleaning

• Seat cushions are 2.0 density foam offering a cozy yet supportive sit / no flame retardants added

• Lifetime guarantee on frame and workmanship

In 8 quick bullet points this tells me so much about the sofa I want to bring into my home, from its construction to its comfort. The lifetime guarantee is also great to have in my back pocket...just in case.

Having this information allows you to do more research (if you need it) on the materials used and if you're really reallypressed to do a sit test, you can either go around your home or to an actual retailer to test out (in this case) and 2.0 density foam. Coupled with everyone's reviews, you'd be surprised how much you can deduce without ever having seen or touched the actual sofa.

Measure and Furniture Block

Measuring is the easy (and I hope, obvious) recommendation here — measure your doorways & the space where the sofa is going — but measuring is almost moot without proper blocking ahead of time.

If the space is empty, use painters tape on the floors (width and depth) and walls (height) to get a general sense of what impact it'll have on how you move through the space. If the space isn't empty — i.e. you're replacing an existing sofa — use what's there as a point of reference. Compare the width, depth, and height against what you already have, again, to get a sense of what the footprint of your sofa will be in your space.

Tape measures are your friend, so if you go all out and get all the numbers, you'll run into fewer surprises down the line.

Use AR Feature To Visualize In Your Space

Did you know the Apt2B has an AR feature? This augmented reality feature let's you see products in "real"spaces or even in your space! This let's you see if the scale, style, and/or color are a good fit for your space. While it is still super important to measure, get swatches, and look at photographs, having his resource isa game changer.

When choosing my sofa, I had a grand ol time switching the fabric on the sofa to get another view of the colors in my home. It was interesting seeing how the entire vibe of the room changed with every swatch switch .

Having this 3-D representation at your fingertips also let's you do some preliminary space planning. If you're like me, you've already drawn up a space plan to get the lay of the land, but if you're a casual shopper and/or don't have access to floor planning software, you can use the AR feature to move the sofa around the space, testing it out in difference areas before committing to any one spot.

Ready to start sofa shopping?

A great place to start is with this Apt2B apartment size sofa round up I did — a sofa for every style on my quiz! While I focused on the apartment sized sofas, you have options!

As for me and my sofa...

If you're following me over on Instagram, then you already know I've chosen the Harper Queen Size Sleeper Sofa in Cloud Velvet. And yes, I followed each of these steps before making this decision because #albieknows. While having more options can sometimes be overwhelming, I loved being able to go through the process towards essentially getting a custom sofa, and I can't wait for y'all to see the end result.

Head over to my Instagram post and lemme know if you've ever considered purchasing a large piece of furniture online. Did you pull the trigger? What stopped you or what helped you decided.

And stay tuned for when my sofa arrives!