Stacked Glass Display Cabinet

This glass display cabinet is sold directly by STACKED and by many retailers - Kmart, BigW, Harvey Norman, Kogan and Bunnings. Woolworth sells Stacked cabinets but not this particular model. I bought mine from Kmart. After all, it is sold at Market Place / online / customer direct, not a showroom / in-store product. Seller is Sello Products which also owns Maxon Products. Important, please read the load capacity section (#3) and understand the actual load limit of this cabinet. It is neither as per the manufacturer hence retailers' websites, nor is it as per the assembly manual.

Cabinet measures 80.5cm x 86.5cm x 36.5cm (H x W x D) external dimensions and weighting 33kg. Gross shipping weight is 35kg. Internally, it has two shelves with 39.5cm (lower) and 38.2cm (upper) height, 77cm x 32cm (W x D). Top and bottom boards are 1" thick MDF board. All glass panels, including side and rear walls, doors and middle shelf, are 4mm tempered glass. Anti-tilt strap is supplied with a proper metal anchor.

Your experience with this product heavily depend on proper assembly. I strongly recommend carefully studying the assembly instructions and pay attention to the risk of toppling that could result in injuries or death. Manual said build time is 30mins, I took over an hour (more on this later) and a helper is needed for assembly.

Pluses

1. Sturdy and stable! - Given the heavy 33kg net weight and modest height of 80.5cm (relative to its 86.5cm x 36.5cm (W x D) dimensions with only 2-tiers and 6 feet with leveller. it is very sturdy and stable, my number 1 requirement. The structure is rock solid with very little play even when tilted / shaken. Threads on the levelers / feet are shallow and it can get pushed in at an angle if not careful. While the MDF board is 1" thick, they can flex given the 33kg weight. Make sure to spread the weight across the 6 feet. Thank goodness 80cm tall cabinet is perfect for my use case. I didn't dare to buy such as the, twice as tall, 4 tier 164cm tall unit with basically the same foot print and construction. The 4 tier unit comes with 2 anti tilt straps and they must be properly installed I imagine.

2. Frameless - glass walls and doors are frameless. Therefore, apart from the top and bottom boards, there are no borders which is fantastic, created least amount of obstructions for items inside, especially given each shelf is at least 38cm tall. As a display cabinet, this is very good.

3. Decent load capacity - tempered glass panels are modest 4mm thick. Middle glass shelf can carry a respectable 3.5kg load. MDF bottom shelf has an impressive 50kg capacity. Top MDF board can carry 4.5kg. I wonder if the middle glass shelf is thicker - 6mm, whether load capacity could have increased to over 20kg. After all, there are two supports on the back glass panels, making altogether 6 supporting posts for the middle shelf.

IMPORTANT - STACKED's web site product description (hence description across multiple retail sites) states load bearing is 50kg / 3.5kg / 50kg for top/mid/bottom shelves/board. However manual claims undefined / 8kg / 50kg load limits. I checked with STACKED and received the following response: "50kg represents the total weight that the entire storage cabinet can bear. The middle glass panel can bear 3.5kg of weight. The top panel is not really recommended for storing items. If you do place something on it, it should not exceed 4.5kg."

4. Glass walls are snug fit on the sides against the back 2 plates of glass with no gaps. The two back glass panels have a 1mm gap in between. 1-2mm gaps exist around the doors, on top and bottom and sides and in between. While not completely sealed, the amount of gaps is relatively small compared to similar products. With a bit of improvising, gaps can be minimised or eliminated.

5. Tools - two pairs of gloves covered with sticky rubber dots are provided for safe glass handling. Also, a decent screw driver with good grip. Nice.

Negatives

1. Manual errors - assembly instructions are decent, 19 pages thick, all in English. There were no adjustments / corrections required. I did reverse step 1 & 2, installing feet before door stoppers and door hinge anchors. After all, why shouldn't you install feet on a flat surface (before door stoppers are added). The plastic anchors are loose hence won't stay if I strictly follow the instructions unless I glue them into place. Manual appears to suggest padding (horn guards) on metal handle tabs and hinges to have self adhesive to help them stay in place while being installed. I improvised by adding double sided tape making building much easier. Technical writer of this manual seems to love the nut, bolt assembly illustration showing it 10 times in the manual when there are only two variations - as glass shelf support or mount for L bracket holding walls together. Screws supplied for feet are pan type while manual shows truss type. Don't worry, they do work and screws are not missing. Manual also suggests there is a video instruction which does not exist. I found a similar one at https://youtu.be/FEyuGjQeMvE?si=LWv5_G731nUzwhIO for 4 tier cabinet. Please DO NOT follow the video for assembly. Follow the manual instead!

2. Washer / rubber rings are thin. I would prefer thicker rubber rings. They are not needed for the nuts used for affixing glass to boards but where nuts are used to support middle glass shelf. There are several spares. Anyway, they can be easily replaced when they eventually become brittle, crack and come off.

3. Feet leveller - as mentioned earlier, the screw threads on the feet for levelling is shallow and can be pushed in at an angle and get stuck. Make sure they are level and make good use of the levelling feature to evenly spread the load across all six feet.

4. Plastic door hinge anchors are loose but functions properly. No improvising is needed. Tabs for protecting the glass door for the lock are thin and different from the much thicker tabs for the door hinges.

5. There is no metal plate where lock latch goes into the top cover board. Be careful not to chip the black MFC/PVC surface. It is not a thick fire retardant laminate.

6. There are two stickers on the MDF board for warnings. They were very difficult to remove! Estimate build time for this cabinet is 30mins according to the manual. I probably needed that much time just to remove those stickers! But no way these large white stickers can stay on a black board in a display cabinet destroying the look.

Lights

There is a variant of this cabinet that comes with 4 lights, for $24 extra. They are 3xAAA batteries powered and attached using self adhesive tape. I hope they won't fall off over time or on a hot day hitting items inside. At least the lights for the lower shelf can be placed on top of the middle glass shelf, shining through the clear glass.

Final Thought

One improvement area about the Kmart online shopping process is their order status. It ends at "fully shipped" meaning it is over to the shipping company / seller for delivery. This usually happens on the same day item was purchased, when another 5 or so business days are required for delivery. Further status updates are available at shipping company's website using the supplied tracking number. Kmart shows a solid green progress bar, as wide as the browser window, suggesting all is done, when item isn't actually delivered, seems a little misleading. Perhaps I am spoilt by eBay / Amazon / AliExpress / Temu, etc platforms.

This 2 tier glass display cabinet costs $160 delivered. For that price, the quality is great. While I called out more negatives than positives, it needs to be noted that its positives are significant positives and I was nitpicking for negatives. Most annoying thing was those stubborn stickers. I love this cabinet so much that I have already ordered another one. I do wish top board comes with a hole making it ready for adding lights, and a cap to plug the hole if not used. I give this glass display cabinet 5 stars!