Barry - Thanks for your...
Barry - Thanks for your reply. Regarding shipping prices, prior to launching any product we submit 20 different zip codes across the country to our carriers and ask for rate quotes on each product, so our rates are based on an average price to ship each product from our warehouse to the continental U.S. Assuming that we gauge people on shipping is assumptive and just flat out wrong. We are charging what we are paying for shipping fees. We can raise our prices and then offer free shipping to people like other companies, but in the end is that any different?
Regarding the other posts - thanks for the replies. I appreciate your viewpoint on them. So LuciferSum - your argument gets into my point regarding quality. Do you think that all manufacturers that are licensed to reproduce an original design are therefore superior manufacturers? I can tell you after visiting hundreds of factories in Italy, Denmark, and China that there are some very high quality manufacturers that make excellent reproductions. In fact, Design within Reach used to buy from the same factories in China that we buy from.
One of Charles and Ray Eames' goals in making the designs they made was to provide them to the masses at affordable prices. Do you think that the Eames Lounge Chair, which retails for $3,000 at Herman Miller authorized retailers, meets their goal of affordability?
Mike
Again, Mike:
Instead of selling knockoffs of commonly available pieces, why not ask your suppliers to think outside the box and offer pieces that are not available from those companies who own the rights?
I'd rather pay more for a real Saarinen Womb chair and ottoman, but if you were offering the Nelson Kangaroo club chair, Herman Miller hasn't made the chair for over 40 years....and vintage ones fetch high prices.
and...yes, I would offer free shipping, even it meant goosing the prices up a bit.
Barry - thanks for the...
Barry - thanks for the reply. Our suppliers do actually make a lot of their own styles, but I think your idea is a good one and one we'll look into. If we start selling reproductions of the Kangaroo and then Knoll or someone licenses it, I'm sure people will "knock" us for selling reproductions, even though we would have been doing it before Knoll licensed it.
Interesting regarding the shipping...so as a browser do you think most people would be more attracted by higher prices yet no shipping fees even if it amounted to the same price? I guess the thought process is that so many web sites hide the shipping fees until checkout in an attempt to lure buyers so there is a stigma about shipping fees. We make sure to quote rates up front right on each page, but there probably still is that stigma.
Thanks again for your input. By the way, I love this site.
Mike
Geez, guys --
Why would you invite a maker of copies, whose work cannot be properly assessed on his website, to copy the priceless rare designs of the masters -- pieces not currently available from other makers, including those who presumably have legitimate access to correct manufacturing information about these pieces ?
Would you do this because you could then get examples of these rare designs, cheap -- regardless of the quality or design integrity of the product ? Doesn't that put you in bed with the very thieves you enjoy castigating ?
Does anybody think that copies of original designs can be produced, well, for 10 or twenty percent of the going price from legitimate makers -- even assuming that those prices are inflated ? Must "the bottom line" rule all of us, sadly trumping our supposed faith in the integrity of the designers and (original) makes of the furniture we admire ? Bargain-hunting is not a dishonorable calling -- until a line is crossed. Where is that line ?
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I agree SDR, you can usually identify an ethical stance...its where self interest is abandoned.
Mike, you are kidding yourself but you're certainly not kidding anyone here. If you had any conception of the effort that goes into developing these pieces that you think you care about you would hang your head in shame. If you had a tenth of the integrity and passion these original designers had you'd stop flogging this shit immediately.
The legal side of this 'debate' doesn't concern me so much, its such a grey area anyway but we all know when something is not right, eventually a design passes away, things like Hoffman chairs are to my way of thinking public property, they are from a different era, perhaps the Barcelona will be there one day soon. But for anyone who claims to love modern design I can't stand it that retailers of your stripe refuse to see the whole picture, either the social, economic or environmental cost. Where is your triple bottom line? I bet you Vitra has one, and I bet you your suppliers do not.
Heath - Thanks for the...
Heath - Thanks for the reply. Given that we have gone through the design process of our Exposition, which are similar to the Barcelona chairs, with our factory, I can assure you I understand the painstaking work that goes into producing these. We have been doing this work for 8 years so we have a good appreciation of what is involved with production of furniture.
Re: The Kangaroo - we don't sell it nor do we know of it. I didn't suggest I knew of it...I only mentioned we would look into it. I don't profess to know every single classic design piece.
Thanks again to everyone for posting. I knew this would be a contentious debate. Aside from a few posts that are downright nasty, I appreciate hearing feedback.
Thanks,
Mike
Logic
Mike,
I hesitate to even engage in this discussion as I don't want to lend you or your knock-offs any credibility, if even by mistake. But I do want to make one point and to ask you one question.
You wrote, "Think of a painting. If Van Gogh licensed all of his paintings to Joe Smith Art Company, would you say that Joe Smith Art Company makes any more of an original than another company that reproduces the Van Gogh without a license if the quality of the two are the same? If the other company points out clearly that it is not an original and is just a reproduction, why is it that their reproduction is any worse than the one from Joe Smith Art Company?"
Now, I can't begin to take the time to explain to you how totally flawed your premise is here. Rather, I'll pretend this is a legitimate question and point out to you that if Van Gogh licensed his artwork to the Joe Smith Art Company, when they sold reproductions of his artwork they would be paying him royalties based on those sales. If another company (say RMR Furniture) were to sell unlicensed copies of Van Gogh's artwork they would not be giving the artist any of the proceeds from those sales. If they don't pay royalties they can therefore sell the product for less, or sell it for the same ammount and have a greater profit margin. They are however, STEALING from the artist. That is why low-rent scumbag knock-off companies irritate people who concern themselves with creative endeavors and think that artists, designers, musicians and other creators of unique intellectual property deserve to be compensated for their work.
My question to you is this. If you have the resources to manufacture and distribute furniture of equal or better quality than the licensed makers of modern classics, why then would you not create your own unique designs and sell those? Why ride on other's coattails? Is it perhaps too difficult and expensive to pay designers for their creativity, pay for the research and development of new products, and to pay for advertising in order to build a market for your products?
Mike
If you actually knew about the Eames' history the lounge and ottoman were never intended to be affordable. It was their first piece that was made outside of that endeavor.
When you think about it it is reasonable for what it is. Sure a womb chair may be 3K+, but the Eames is made of exposed wood (must be high quality and beautiful) and top notch leather. The knoll womb is fabric and a covered shell.
Sadly,
there are as many holes in the arguments on one side as on the other. I have fallen victim to the same vice as have others here: assuming the worst of the "enemy," and using the same smear tactics, false analogies, and distorted logic that we all decry when others are using them against us.
Step back, and examine your motives. Isn't it just a little too easy. . .to fault "the other guy" ?
Interestingly, the "enemy" in this case is keeping his cool, while we become more and more shrill. Not that that is proof of anything -- but it's interesting.
In most cases, the designs we're talking about are no longer "owned." The pieces are now "timeless classics," and all bets are off. It's "buyer beware." Too bad that it's just easier to "guarantee" a quality product if we throw out all the "unauthorized" reproductions -- but we might be throwing out a better-priced "baby" with the "bathwater" of the "copiers." And in our next breath, we'd be castigating the "original makers" for bogus copyright claims and, yes, rip-off prices.
We're just not happy campers, are we ?
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I think all people here want is honesty and integrity and with such desirable objects thats falls away easily on both sides and to put it poorly more easily on Mikes side of the fence than the other.
I don't think he's keeping his cool, I think he's blatantly ignoring what he doesn't want to know about.
Rule of thumb
In simplest terms, if you care about resale value, get the real thing. Down the road, the value will hold or can even increase.
If you don't care about resale value, and need a quick fix to fill a gap for a photoshoot or staging a house for sale, then maybe a repro or IKEA can work.
Repros have their place, but on potential resale value alone they will never be equal to the real thing, no matter what level of quality it is.
Pegboard - I hear what...
Pegboard - I hear what you're saying and I understand your point of view. We started off selling funky styled furniture - the shoe chair, for example, and funky sofas and lounges. We still sell those but over time our customers asked about the reproductions, so we started selling those. We're in the business to supply products to our customers that they want. We have been doing it for 8 years and we take pride in selling high quality products and making sure our customers are happy with their purchases (crazy concept).
As each generation passes, the newest generation takes things from the previous generations and makes them better. Led Zepellin, considered by many to be the best rock and roll band of all time, "stole" riffs from dozens of different artists much in the same way that the furniture designers of the 20's took bits and pieces of prior works from the 1800's.
Anyway, I'm open to hearing yours and other people's arguments. It's always good to understand where people are coming from when their opinion differs from yours. Maybe one day we will switch to licensed suppliers of reproductions. However, given our customer demographics, we believe that the products we are currently selling are fitting our customers needs of quality and cost. I know people hate to hear this but the last thing on most of the original designers' minds was creating a luxury brand, which is what has happened with these large corporations licensing their products. I know what it costs to make a lot of these products and I know what these corporations are marking up their products by.
I hope in the future more people on this forum will be open to the possibility that (a) companies like ours can actually sell high quality reproduction pieces at reasonable prices and (b) just because a large corporation has licensed a product does not mean that the company's reproduction is any more "original" than another company. I know those are not possibilities that all people agree with, but I'm just asking to keep an open mind.
I wonder how people will feel when one day those licenses expire...
Again, thanks for your feedback. It's a hot topic that people are clearly passionate about...
"Any fool can make a...
"Any fool can make a Barcelona chair, it takes genius to design one.
Then again according to Wilde you might be a genius..if talent borrows and genius steals. Oh no thats not right you're just selling theft aren't you?"
Heath - Did Knoll design the Barcelona Chair?
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