Where do we make our slipcovers? The short and sweet answer is China, Shenzhen to be specific. Shenzhen is city that is often described as the “silicon valley of China”. It borders the sea and runs a collective of the busiest ports in the world.
Where’s Shenzhen?I guess it’s very understandable that at this part of the post many of yous would be going “boo” – unfair labour practice, underage workers, unscrupulous business owners, and worse than imaginable working conditions. That’s what first comes to mind when imagining how the ‘average’ Chinese factory operates.
But we are not a factory. Nor one of those massive production facilities you see on TV with men and women sitting next to conveyor lines feeding product pallets to be loaded into a container and then a truck.
We’re a team that’s barely a hundred between our headquarters in Malaysia (42 people) and Shenzhen (40 people) office. Though we have been rapidly expanding over the last few years, our workspace still hardly counts as a factory. A mid-sized workshop maybe.
But we were a team of 2 once. In early 2009, we were working our ass off via our garage in Brooklyn, West of Melbourne, juggling our day jobs in between; up to the point where it’s impossible to add another 8 hours on top the 8 required from our day job. We then rented a small space in a shared workroom/studio where we need the space to stock a few rolls of fabric and the extra gears. We grew a bit more then, where we hired 2 seamstresses (they’re sisters) and bumped our production capacity to 2 sets of covers a day. Yay!
Business was going good one would say, but the fact was, we didn’t really go anywhere for 2 years since we started renting the workshop space. Cost of rental rose at 5-10% yearly, cost of material is forever expensive (we were buying stock from local fabric house, expect 350% mark-up minimum), shipping our product overseas cost upwards A$100 (try getting a quote for a 6.5 kg parcel to USA from Auspost). And we were expensive, very expensive compared to to where we are now. Our first 2 models were the karlanda 2 seater and ektorp 3 seater, they were A$420 and A$540 respectively then. So, would anyone be interested in a $500 set of loveseat covers? I didn’t think so, maybe some but definitely out of reach for the average home.
Most things in life doesn’t fully make sense at that time, even when we were running around in Hong Kong (just above Shenzhen) throughout 2010 and 2011 looking for location, hiring our first team member, and spent countless hours negotiating for everything (literally everything); but we knew that the next step of growth could only make sense if we can lower shipping fees, lower cost of fabrics, lower production hours, increase quality and speed up delivery – not a single one of these of course, was an easy feat.
- To lower the shipping fee, we need to somehow move the products to be shipped from a busier port where there are more airplanes leaving towards the country of destination daily, just like an airplane ticket, the busier the route is, the cheaper the ticket is. Our worldwide shipping is now free for any purchase over $150 (any sofa slipcover)
- To lower fabric cost, we started designing our own fabric lines and had them made directly via a milling house, we of course will need the space to store them as well as huge investment in buying the bulk amount of fabrics in the first place.
- To get better quality, we need to individually interview/hire very experienced seamstresses and ensure that everyone shares the same passion and commitment to how great the products should be before they are being ironed and folded into a shipping box.
- To speed up delivery, we need to have the fabrics ready in stock, have very experienced & efficient seamstresses, and work systematically, eg. by grouping all the similar/same product template, we’re able to cut/sew the covers in batches and ship within 2 to 3 weeks.
The question still remains though, as to why Comfort Works does not advertise this piece of information the website, and it is because we honestly feel where our product is being sewn is not a compromise to our beliefs as well as the standard of craftsmanship (words of Rachel, my partner).
Our company mission is to rejuvenate a living space without breaking the bank – one sofa at a time that is.
So I hope this helps to clarify any doubts or confusions. We have never previously thought that this topic would cause any disappointment until one of our customers as well as a blogger brought this to our attention and the blogosphere.
Hope that this also opens up a platform for discussion and as a business, we value any opportunity for any feedback as it means new grounds for improvements for us to better serve you; having said that, please don’t hesitate to leave us your thoughts below.
Cheers 🙂