Ergonomic Office Chairs in Melbourne — Sit in the Best Before You Buy

Two chairs at the same money can suit opposite bodies. That is the part the reviews cannot help with: a chair that a 190 cm reviewer calls the best they have used may be the wrong seat depth for you by two centimetres, which you will discover slowly, over a few weeks, as an ache behind the knees. Our Melbourne showroom at Shop 1A/280 Whitehorse Rd, Nunawading exists so that you find that out in ten minutes instead.

Where we are

Nunawading is in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, on Whitehorse Rd, and it is our only address in Victoria — so everything we sell is under one roof there. The weekday hours run 11am to 8pm, Monday to Friday — Nunawading is the one showroom you can visit mid-morning, on a lunch break or after work, without picking your day around us.

Weekends are shorter: Saturday and Sunday we are open 2pm to 6pm. That is a four-hour window, and it is worth ringing before you set out. Weekdays and weekends are also run by different specialists — Donald through the week and Garrett at weekends, both listed with their direct numbers on our showrooms page.

What you can only learn by sitting in it

Three things decide whether a chair works for your body over a full working day. All three are invisible in photographs, and all three take under a minute to check in person.

• The seat edge against the back of your knees. A seat 2 cm too deep does nothing for the first hour and then quietly presses behind your knee for the rest of the afternoon. Shorter legs feel it sooner. A sliding seat-depth adjustment solves it entirely — but only if you know you need one, and the models that offer it are not always the expensive ones.
• Where the lumbar support actually lands. Two people of identical height can have very differently shaped lower backs, and a lumbar pad either sits in your curve or fights it. There is no way to predict this from a measurement. Adjusting the pad on the floor takes about thirty seconds, and if the range does not reach where you need it, that model is simply not your chair.
• Whether the recline actually holds you. Tilt mechanisms are tuned around a weight range. Push past the top of that range and the chair sags under you; sit well below it and the same chair feels stiff and unhelpful. Leaning back properly three or four times, not perching politely on the front of the seat, tells you more than any review will.

What is on the floor

Both showrooms carry the same range, so the choice between Nunawading and South Granville is purely which one you can get to. What matters more is the order you sit in things. If you have driven out to Whitehorse Rd with a shortlist, this is the sequence that gets the most out of the visit.

• Start with the chair you think you want. Whether that is a Herman Miller Aeron, an Embody, a Cosm, a Sayl, a Mirra 2 or a LiberNovo Omni, sit in it first and set a baseline while you are fresh. Everything after it gets judged against that feeling.
• Then the tier below it. The Sihoo DORO S300, C500 and C300 Pro and the UE Flow 530, 550 and 660 Air are the honest test of whether the money above them is buying you something your body notices. Sometimes it plainly is. Sometimes it is not, and we would rather you found that out sitting down than after delivery.
• Then something you had not considered. This is where the range earns its keep — the Sihoo M-series at the value end, the UE ACT 280 Pro, the Omni SE and Omni Pro so you can feel the manual-to-motorised step rather than read about it, and the big-and-tall LiberNovo Maxis, now orderable in Manual, Electric and Airflow configurations. Ring ahead if the Maxis is specifically why you are coming, so we can have the configuration you want ready.
• Finish at a working height. The T-series sit-stand desks run up and down on the floor with monitor arms and headrests fitted. Set one to your own desk height and sit in your two finalists again — armrest and desk height interact, and a chair that felt right in open space can feel different once there is a desk in front of it.

How a visit works

The session is free, one-on-one, and there is nothing to sign. Walk-ins are fine during opening hours, though a call ahead is more useful in Melbourne than most people assume, because the weekday and weekend sessions are staffed by different specialists and the weekend window is shorter.

What actually happens: a specialist asks what your working day looks like, how many hours you are seated, where the discomfort shows up and when, and takes your height into account before touching a chair. Then each chair is dialled in to you — seat height, seat depth, lumbar position, armrests, tilt tension — before you sit in it. An unadjusted chair tells you almost nothing, which is why the same model can feel excellent in one shop and terrible in another.

Bring your laptop if you want to test at a real working height, and allow enough time to sit in each finalist twice, with something else in between. First impressions of chairs are unreliable — the second sit, after your body has had a comparison, is the one worth trusting.

Everything on the floor is genuine stock. Every chair we sell is brand new, and the warranty on every brand — Herman Miller, LiberNovo, Sihoo and UE — is handled locally by Aussie Chair, serviced here rather than sent overseas.

Taking it home

If the chair you settle on is in stock at Nunawading and fits in your car, you can take it with you on the day. Otherwise we deliver across metropolitan Melbourne, regional Victoria and the rest of Australia, with freight quoted at checkout against your address. Desks almost always travel by freight rather than in a boot.

Before you drive over

Two things make a visit shorter and better. First, know what your current chair does badly — not which chair you want, but which specific thing about the one you sit in now has to change. That single sentence narrows the floor faster than a shortlist does. Second, if you are already choosing between two named models, read our comparison of those two beforehand so the floor time goes on your body rather than on the spec differences you could have read at home.

Questions we get about the Melbourne showroom

The weekend hours look short — when is the best time to come?

A weekday if you possibly can. Monday to Friday we are open 11am to 8pm, which is a nine-hour window and easily the most relaxed way to visit — evenings after work included. Saturday and Sunday we open 2pm to 6pm. A weekend visit is entirely doable, but it is four hours rather than nine, so ring first.

Is the Melbourne range the same as the Sydney one?

Yes. Both showrooms carry the full working range, not a subset and not display shells, so there is nothing to gain by travelling to the other one. Choose whichever is closer to you.

Can I test a chair against my own desk height?

Yes, and you should. The T-series sit-stand desks on the floor move through the usual sitting and standing range, so in most cases we can set one to match your desk at home before you sit in your finalists. Bring your laptop if the way you use it is unusual — deep desks, dual monitors and low benchtops all change which armrest designs work for you.

Do you have anywhere else in Victoria?

No. Nunawading is our only Victorian location. Our other addresses, including the pickup points in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, are listed on the showrooms page. Anywhere we do not have a location, we ship, with freight quoted at checkout.

How do I know the chairs are genuine?

Come in and check for yourself — that is exactly what the showroom is for. Every chair on the floor is genuine, current stock, and you can inspect the build, the branded labels and the serial numbers in person before you spend anything. It is a fair question to ask any retailer selling chairs at this level, and an in-person look answers it better than any claim on a website.

Can I see the LiberNovo Maxis?

The Maxis is the big-and-tall model in the LiberNovo range and is orderable now in three configurations: Manual, Electric and Airflow. Because the configurations differ, ring the showroom before you travel if you want to sit in a specific one, and we will tell you what is on the floor that day.