Factory assembled furniture often makes use of highly specialized and expensive equipment that most people don&#x27;t even have access to.<p>For instance, a wood steamer, to bend the back of a chair into a curve, followed by a few days of immobilizing and drying the piece.  This sort of step is only cost effective when you are building hundreds of chairs.<p>Or there might be staples from a staple gun, or springs that can only be installed with the help of a power tool.<p>And, as already mentioned by parent, most factory-assembled wood furniture nowadays uses dowels or wafers and wood glue.  The resulting join is <i>much</i> stronger than twistlock connectors in particle board.<p>But you can fit more flat-pack chairs in one cargo container, which is about the only reason they even exist.  If you are confident in your assembly abilities, a bottle of wood glue, clamps, and a framing square will produce better results on particle-board furniture than following the instructions as written.  If not, you&#x27;ll make a mess and ruin your furniture.  And honestly, sometimes you just need something that&#x27;s good enough to do the job, for $20, that you can just discard the next time you move.