Quote: (05-02-2016 02:36 PM)Sidney Crosby Wrote:
Aren't young people in Europe/UK ditching nicer furniture for shitty ultra modern IKEA furniture? I've heard you can buy antiques cheap over there cause the majority of young people don't want them.
Yeah this is true for young people and those of the working classes especially. There's also a big thing in the UK where people spend hours everyday slouched on their couch watching TV. Those guys just want super soft and comfy sofas to be lazy bums in. Just watch Gogglebox. I personally prefer a more upright position as it keeps me more alert and energetic. It's true about the Ikea thing, but those pieces are not very interesting. I'm betting that that furniture with 'character' may have a small market I can exploit.
The thing is, these big companies that mass produce furniture have huge budgets so those are the only things you see advertised on TV, unless you've seen nice furniture at someones house you wont really know what to look for. People are suckers for marketing. Personally, I've never really thought anything in DFS looks very good, unlike with clothes, cars and other types of consumer items where I can feel somewhat passionate about products and designs. I think mainstream sofas are too blocky and large, and look overpowering in a small UK living room.
Quote: (05-02-2016 02:47 PM)John Michael Kane Wrote:
What's your supply chain look like? How many vendors are you working with? What is the lead time from factory to export to import to customs to your retail showroom to the customer? Are you going to have inventory in stock, or will all orders be filled on a as-needed basis? How much cash do you have for this venture? What about loans? What experience to you have in management, sales or retailing?
The supply chain is quite a mess. Basically I go abroad, and these places have small furniture manufacturing 'workshops' with anywhere between 5-15 employees, mostly on the lower end. The workshops just manufacture the wooden products unfinished. In the main areas you can have hundreds of such workshops.
They are way behind on technology but have an abundant supply of woodworkers (carvers etc) and massive tradition of arts and crafts that they can draw upon for inspiration. This is the main advantage of importing from there. These guys export very little, so things are very 'asian' and most things (99% of it) would be extremely out of place in the West, aesthetics wise. However, I believe it's possible to make customs designs that should work in the West.
I've worked with one workshop so far (all my orders were from retailers, but I visited one of the workshops a few times). I would need to find more good contacts if I proceed. I would then need to find the best way to finish these products. Finishers and upholsters work independently (also in small units) so need to make long-term relationships with good ones, or hire people myself. The latter would be ideal in the long term.
It's not easy procuring these products, a bed can take two guys two weeks to make, apparantly. I think an order can be filled in a month or, two max. Then 6 weeks have it here. The idea would be to pay these guys a little more for a good and timely service. I dont expect to sell large quantities, but would like to make a 'healthy' margin on each product while keeping my operation and costs small.
I'm thinking if I have a small unit, a little advertising and a developed product mix, I would like to sell around 1 bed, 1 wardrobe, 1 sofa set, a few coffee tables and mirror frames a week and that should be ok for me.
I've got around 30K to invest in this, cash. Dont expect to blow it all at once. I think retail unit rent/location/size is something I need to think about, they wont be cheap around London.
I've got a few samples already. If I get good reviews, then the idea is to go back, develop some more contacts and get a larger sample size. Spend maybe 10K. Then come back and temporarily hire a retail unit somewhere and get some good feedback. If that looks good then look for a more permanent setup. The idea would be to have a decent selection available with a preference to selling those, and then charge a little more for custom jobs (more difficult as hand-made stuff never looks the same as pics, dealing with fabrics, chasing up individual items etc).