What is FF&E logistics?
FF&E logistics is the work between the purchase order and the furnished room. A single hotel project can buy furniture, fixtures and equipment from dozens of vendors, each shipping on its own schedule, while the building is still under construction. Someone has to receive all of it, check it, store it, and bring it to the site floor by floor in the order the rooms are finished. Some people call it hospitality logistics; here it is one service built around a construction schedule.
Alvy Logistics runs FF&E receiving and storage out of its Valencia warehouse in north Los Angeles County and delivers to projects across Los Angeles County, Orange County and the Inland Empire.
Receiving from many vendors
Every vendor ships to one address. Vendors send freight by LTL, truckload, parcel or container, and imported pieces come up from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, about 60 miles south, on the vendor’s or the forwarder’s freight. Each delivery is checked against the purchase order and logged, and the running inventory is visible in the Logiwa client portal, so you can see what has arrived and what is still missing. Receiving starts at $12 a pallet, and container unloading is quoted per container.
Inspection before anything reaches the site
Damage found on install day is expensive, because the replacement takes weeks and the room waits. We open cartons where your spec calls for it, photograph damage, and report it to you and the vendor while there is still time to reorder. Pieces are then tagged by floor and room. Inspection, tagging and sorting are quoted per project, once we know how many cartons are opened and how pieces are labeled.
FF&E warehousing until each floor is ready
Construction schedules move, so storage has to flex. Palletized cartons start at $25 per pallet per month, and case goods or crated pieces too big for a pallet can sit on dedicated floor space from $2.50 per square foot per month. Storage is not sold on annual terms, so a project pays only while its pieces wait. Short-term warehouse storage explains how project holds are set up, and pallet storage covers longer ones. When a piece only needs to change trucks on its way to the site, cross-docking skips storage altogether.
Phased release and hotel furniture delivery in room order
When a floor is ready, its pieces leave Valencia on a box truck loaded in reverse room order, so the first room’s pieces come off first. The crew works the dock window and elevator schedule set by the general contractor, carries each piece to its room, sets it to the plan and clears the cartons. That is the same service as white glove delivery, applied to a whole floor at a time. White glove delivery by box truck starts at $325 for a local delivery. A full floor takes more crew time than a single delivery, so floor releases are quoted with the crew hours spelled out, and each release is booked and followed in Alvy’s online shipper portal.
The next phase stays in storage until its date. This is the core of FF&E transportation: not moving everything at once, but moving the right floor on the right day.
Where our job ends and the installer’s begins
FF&E installation is done by the project’s installer. That includes wall-hung pieces, headboards fixed to walls, millwork, and anything electrical. Our job ends with every piece in the right room, inspected, placed and unpacked, so the installer’s crew spends its time installing instead of hunting for cartons.
OS&E alongside FF&E
Operating supplies and equipment, such as linens, glassware, tableware and housekeeping carts, usually come from different vendors and arrive later. We receive and store OS&E with the rest of the project and release it on the same schedule, so the opening team works from one delivery plan instead of two.
Who FF&E logistics is for
- Purchasing agents and procurement firms that need one receiving point and one inventory record for many vendors.
- Interior designers managing a hotel, restaurant or model-room install, often with pieces held until the space is ready.
- Owners and developers renovating a property that stays open, where rooms come out of service a floor at a time and deliveries have to match the floors being turned over and keep clear of guest areas.
- FF&E installers who want every piece staged, inspected and in the room before their crew arrives.
What does a hotel project quote need?
Send the project address and opening date, the vendor list with expected ship dates, an estimate of pallet or carton counts, the floor-by-floor release plan if you have one, and the site’s dock and elevator rules. We send a written quote for the project as a program and walk you through it by phone during business hours. Business clients are invoiced. For delivery-only pricing, the white glove delivery cost guide explains what sets the price.
