Sad. I'm pulling for them overall, but they don't really make the best business decisions. For example, these parties, get togethers at the DWR stores are always packed full of people - what's the result? On a non party night, day, the store is completely empty. Stop the Tools for Living, stop the expansions. Focus on your bread and butter. Get profitable. Shift online, focus online. And stop putting us through your quarterly conference calls of non-sense.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/06/22/daily49.html
DWR
Tried to branch out on their own because they thought it would be more lucrative than focusing on classics with standard pricing and standard profit margin. Unfortunately, it backfired, probably because they are not designers to begin with and even if they were, they have to compete with all the other contemporary designs on the market.
Barry actually had a decent idea to try to license stuff that no one else does. However, there is probably huge investment involved with doing that, and the market is fairly limited. But at least they would be admired rather than scorned.
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