How to Buy Office Chair Online: 7 Tips to Pick the Right One

Purchasing an office chair online can be a major hassle, especially if you want a good chair. If you are only looking for the cheapest possible chair, then it might only take you 10 minutes to buy an office chair online. However, you want the best office chair that can give you fantastic support, which takes a lot of time to find.

There are several different criteria you need to think about when it comes to purchasing a chair. The requirements can include your budget and the material the chair is made of, the support that the chair can give you, and whether or not the chair is ergonomic.

If you are overwhelmed by making considerations about your office chair, rest assured that you don’t need to be with our office chair buying guide. You can do several things to narrow down the search for your office chair, and you should be able to pick an office chair easily from the best place to buy an office chair.

How to Choose an Office Chair: 7 Tips for You

1. Look At The Size and Style

One of the things that most people do not think about when buying an office chair online is the size of the chair. The size of the office chair might be applicable if you have a small apartment or office cubicle. Additionally, if you work in a co-working space or at a desk with many people, you certainly don’t want a large obnoxious chair that keeps getting in the way and causing people to trip.

Make sure to measure the space in front of your desk before buying an office chair online because no one likes getting a chair that is far too big for their space.

Additionally, while it isn’t necessary for everyone, you can make sure that the chair matches the style of your desk and office setup. It’s a very cosmetic touch but can be a deciding factor if you do like your chairs and desks to match.

2. Do You Need An Ergonomic Chair?

One of the best answers to the question of what to look for in an office chair is ergonomic support. If you are going to be sitting inside of this chair all day, you need to not only be comfortable but productive as well. An ergonomic chair marries both functionality and comfort, and they are the best for people who are sitting inside their office all day.

If you want to know how to choose an office chair with ergonomics design, then read on! Ergonomic chairs have several advantages over the typical office chairs. For one, they are designed to be very customizable in terms of support. The chairs can have their height adjusted, the depth of the seat customized, and the back support changed. This makes sure that you can change the chair not only depending on your own needs but also the needs of the day.

If you find yourself suffering from back pain during the workday, you probably need to think about investing in an ergonomic chair. Now, ergonomics is not a type of chair, but a type of support that a chair provides. Ergonomic chairs are mostly used for back pain. There are plenty of great ones out there, including the best ergonomic chair Canada.

Ergonomic chairs are very beneficial if you find yourself sitting all day, and once you get an ergonomic chair, you are not going back!

3. Take The Padding Into Account

A good chair is only as comfortable as the material it is made out of, and you need to take the padding into account whenever you sit in the chair. Padding should be at the Goldilocks zone, being just right. If the padding the chair offers is too hard on your body, then it can eventually stop being comfortable over long periods. Having the padding be too soft can also be detrimental since it can become squished and won’t offer you any support.

Good materials for an office chair that offer sufficient padding are some of these:

The first is fabric, which is arguably the most common type of office chair material. Fabric offers excellent support, is very comfortable, and fabric covered chairs are very attractive in any office setting. The only major problem is that fabric is very susceptible to stains and spills, so if you are choosing to eat or drink into your chair, the risk of damage due to spills is increased.

Vinyl is the most durable material that you can use for your office chair, and even if it gets dirty or has a bit of wear and tear, you can still count on it to look good. While Vinyl doesn’t breathe as well and can be a bit hot if you are sitting on it for an extended period of time, you can buy it once and count on it to be durable. Vinyl chairs are also the best office chair for back pain.

Another great tool that you can use for office chair material is mesh webbing. This webbing is designed to provide a lot of airflow, and the airflow should continue to flow up to you even as you sit on it. It’s not the most comfortable sitting posture in the world for the long term, but it does work if you want to be kept cool.

4. Get Armrests

One more factor you need to consider when you want to buy an office chair online is the armrest. Armrests might seem quite familiar for office chairs and other types of chairs, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore them when it comes time to buy the chair. The armrests are essential for both your ergonomics and your comfort, and they can guide your arms and hands into a rested position that should keep your posture nice whenever you rest.

The armrests also help to remove your back and shoulder pain and can alleviate specific other pains that you are feeling. Plus, they also allow you to get up from the chair much faster. Go ahead, try to get up out of an office chair with armrests and without armrests, and you can see the difference.

Much like with everything else, armrests need to be at the proper height for your body. If they are too high or too low, then the benefits instantly go away. Don’t listen to anyone who says that your armrests are not needed or that they cause problems for your posture. It isn’t true, and a good pair of armrests can make or break a chair.

5. Take A Look At Its Controls

The best office chair is one that is very easily adjustable for you. You shouldn’t need to fiddle with the controls to adjust your office chair, and it should be as simple as reaching down and making a simple adjustment. It shouldn’t require you to get up or move around in the chair to have to get it just how you like it.

Even buying an office chair online, you should be able to see how the controls look. Most adjusting controls are underneath the chair and can be easily reachable for you. If the controls to adjust the ergonomic chair are out of place or are concealed in any way, then it might not be the right chair for you.

If you can get the hang of operating your chair early, then you won’t need to think about adjusting your chair whenever you need to raise or lower the height. The more comfortable you can make your chair, the better support you can get for your body and posture.

6. Look At The Mobility

Most office chairs have some form of mobility, often in the form of wheels attached to their bases. Do you need that for your office or home? If you are on a hardwood floor and want to have the ability to slide yourself across the floor to get to the other end of your office, then wheels might be beneficial.

However, if your office workspace is mostly carpeted, then it cannot do as much for you unless you get office chairs that are designed to be moved around on the carpet. Some of the pros of wheeled chairs include the mobility and the ease of pivoting your chair around. 

The need for wheels depends on two things. First, you need to work in an office space that benefits from them. Working in a large open area where you can wheel from one desk to another might be useful if you are the leader of a project and need to see what your team is doing.

Second, you should need wheels if you want to get around while sitting. If you have a very small office space with everything at standing level, rolling around isn’t going to do much if you need to stand up every five minutes.

7. Look At Your Budget

The most important thing to know when you pick an office chair is the budget you are working with. You should have some idea of what your office chair’s budget should look like because the prices you are offered can vary wildly. Some genuinely great chairs might be too expensive for you, while you might catch bad chairs early because their price is too low. Keeping your budget in mind when buying an office chair online allows you to make purchases with clarity and speed. The faster you find and buy the right chair, the faster you can start sitting in it!

One Important Caveat When Buying Chairs Online

Buying an office chair online is a lot like buying shoes online; there’s a risk that you might buy the wrong one for you and mess up your order. No amount of reading reviews or analyzing features can ever replace the first-hand knowledge of sitting inside of the chair itself. You might find the perfect chair that ticks all of your personal boxes, but if you sit in it and the chair is uncomfortable, then there’s nothing you can do.

If you can, try to spend some time sitting in different office chairs and make a note of what you like. If you know you like a certain ergonomic chair height, material, or feature, you can look for office chairs online with those same features. This increases the chances of you liking the chair once you buy it online.

Should I Look For A Second Hand Chair?

One easy way to save some money is to find a secondhand chair that someone is trying to get rid of. Secondhand chairs are generally cheaper, and as long as the chair doesn’t have any major design flaws or missing parts, you can reliably purchase a secondhand chair and have it meet your needs. 

Make sure to analyze the webpage for a second hand chair before buying an office chair online because you don’t want to be surprised by things like stains, missing parts, or the chair getting stuck whenever you adjust it. While most secondhand chairs are sold in like new conditions, you still want to make sure that you are getting what you pay for quality.

Maintaining Your Office Chair

After you go through all the trouble of finding the perfect office chair online and getting it sent to your location, you probably don’t want to go through the trouble of doing all of that again, right?

In order to make sure that your new office chair remains in pristine condition, there are a few things you can do to keep it maintained. For one, you can keep it clean. Even something as simple as wiping the chair down with a baby wipe can remove crumbs and smaller stains and goes a long way for maintenance. You need to clean office chairs frequently to make sure that it is not only clean but also maintains its quality.

You can also avoid being too rough with your chair. Don’t purposefully bend the different parts too far or adjust the chair several times in one sitting. The more wear and tear you needlessly place on the joints and parts of the chair, the easier it is for them to break under pressure accidentally.

Taking care of an office chair isn’t hard, and if you follow a few simple steps, the chair should be able to last you a long time.

Final Thoughts

While buying an office chair online can seem like a challenging thing to do, it’s actually not that hard to get started. Once you have an idea of what you want and what type of chair works the best in your office, you can quickly narrow the options down.