Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 78

3. The Vistosi "Pulcini"
bird by Alessandro Pianon
is comprised of handblown blue and green
glass.
4. A pair of Jean-Michel
Frank-designed console
tables crafted from
wrought iron and
parchment wood.

3

3

4

5 3

I think the real secret sauce is choice. We give
those people who are designing one-of-a-kind
objects that have in-stock inventory the chance to
reach a much larger audience. If you're a designer
or a consumer and you're looking for a chandelier
and suddenly you can look at dealers from all
over the world and have this great collection of
ready, available stock, that to me is what makes
it work-that people now have a much broader
choice than they had before, so they can create
better projects. And they can also find stuff
that's ready now versus a lot of new things you
have to order and wait and wait and wait for.
The fact that we fit right into the middle of great
selection and available stock is such a winning
combination.

Yes, that makes perfect sense. And
everybody's in a rush. They always want
what they want when they want it.

I needed some dining chairs and I went on and
found six that l loved from Right Auction that are
probably perfect. I haven't pulled the trigger
yet-I just found those yesterday-but I buy
stuff constantly.

Do you think the model you have created
has affected the design world? Are you
actually affecting, not necessarily the
process of how people design, but
actual design?
I think so, because if someone is working on a
project and they're limited to their local selection,
then suddenly we say, 'Hey, you know, here's...'
An example of this is I was looking for a round
center table for my house in Tuxedo, New York.
And I kind of had a predetermined idea of what
it was going to look like in my head. It was going
to be dark wood, robust but not too much carving.
So then I went on and I searched 'round tables'

078

November 2013 hospitalitydesign.com

by price, high to low. I decided to look at all of
them just to discover what I might like differently
than I had expected. The table I bought is
completely different in look and design than
what I originally had in mind. I ended up with
something that actually made the room have this
whole different feeling than it would have had
otherwise. So I think that we affect the process
and the outcome-how you find it and also what
you might actually end up selecting. It creates a
new collaboration.

It's the happy accident...the moment
one says, 'It's better than what I could
have imagined.' And you have pushed
to global markets now. What kind
of challenges have you been faced
with there?

Our first goal whenever we introduce a new
product in a foreign country is to get interest from
people who are within proximity to that market.
So for example, we started in Paris, moved to
the States, and then London was our next stop.
I'm going to Scandinavia in a week and that's
our next market, but our first new markets after
London and France were Spain, Italy, Belgium,
Netherlands, and we thought, well, the London
business is sort of like New York where there are
a lot of people who like design, and it's not that
far. They don't have the same tax issues, they
don't have the same transportation, so we open
those markets wanting to leverage the fact that
those dealers will now do business in the UK
and have some local business. Then we try to

5. Irinee Rochard's Art
Deco sculpture of white
metal elephants mounted
on an onyx base.

get press within the markets in Europe so that
those dealers will have business close to home. Of
course designers and other people in the U.S. will
shop from them, but we don't rely on that. We try
to build into the market local business.
I was in Belgium recently and one of the
dealers said he was surprised that a design firm
he'd been trying to work with for years who'd
never shopped at their store found something on
1stdibs, contacted them, and bought it. So he says,
'I just can't believe I'm reaching people in my
hometown who I couldn't reach before.' There
are many different ways to access clients and to
create these buying opportunities, so that's what's
worked out nicely.

It's global, with an emphasis on regional
connections. I like that.

Yes, we try to build that into the mix when
we're adding a new market. Are they relying on
exporting everything to America? If that's all the
dealers want, well then, that's not a good business
plan because we're not developing a global
market. We're just developing a global supply
with a local market.

Yes, the further you reach, the better the
access and choices for local markets as
well. Which brings us to what's next for
you guys? What are you thinking about
in terms of either extending reach or
developing new products?

We're a focused company and we do things
methodically, step by step. Before we do anything
wildly new we're going to finish working on
the things we're already doing, which would
be building out the European market-buyers
and sellers. We have a lot of work to do on both
fronts. We have within mainland Europe and
the UK about five hundred dealers, and in the
U.S. we have approximately three times that.
That market should be brought up to par at some
point, and over a couple of years it will. As we
grow the supply we'll grow the demand. It kind
of happens automatically in a way, but we don't
sit back to wait. We're proactive in our marketing
efforts, with events and advertising. For an online
company, we're one of the few that believes in
print advertising. hd


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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hospitality Design - November 2013

Table of Contents
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - Intro
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - Cover1
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - Cover2
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 1
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 2
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 3
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 4
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 5
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 6
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 7
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 8
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 9
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 10
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 11
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 12
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 13
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 14
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 15
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 16
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 17
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 18
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 19
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 20
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - Table of Contents
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 22
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 23
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 24
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 25
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 26
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 27
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 28
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 29
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 30
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 31
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 32
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 33
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 34
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 35
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 36
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 37
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 38
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 39
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 40
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 41
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 42
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 43
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 44
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 45
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 46
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 47
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 48
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 49
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 50
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 51
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 52
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 53
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 54
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 55
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 56
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 57
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 58
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 59
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 60
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 61
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 62
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 63
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 64
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 65
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 66
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 67
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 68
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 69
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 70
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 71
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 72
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 73
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 74
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 75
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 76
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 77
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 78
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 79
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 80
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 81
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 82
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 83
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 84
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 85
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 86
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 87
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 88
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 89
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 90
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 91
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 92
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 93
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 94
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 95
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 96
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 97
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 98
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 99
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 100
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 101
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 102
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 103
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 104
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 105
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 106
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 107
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 108
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 109
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 110
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 111
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 112
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 113
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Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 117
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 118
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 119
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - 120
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - Cover3
Hospitality Design - November 2013 - Cover4
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