After a long day grafting down the yard getting the new warehouse ready and meeting customers on their visits to see products and the new operations nerve centre taking shape Its back to the nightly office which has for the last 2 weeks behind basically a camp bed in the Children’s hospital in Cardiff , ( nothing serious)
with the majority of our business running on-line it really goes to show that in today’s world of commerce you really can operate from anywhere, It’s the same for you now too as you order your furniture from either a computer , lap top , I pad , I phone and now even your TV – yes everything today is available online even ordering your solid oak furniture from a factory directly in China! –
It’s sweltering in here tonight so there surely won’t be much sleep possible at all , I can sense it already, you know those holidays you go on where it’s sweltering and you have no a/c but just that mini fan high on the far away ceiling – yes it’s gonna be one of those nights! so sitting down and writing on this blog should kill some time and pass away the hours . I sit down and think what can I actually write tonight though as through the day I have kept all the information coming through anyway .
As I look through old emails to about a year ago I note that it’s only 12 months ago that Fortune Woods shipped its first container to the UK market , that 12 months feels like 5 years after all the things we have achieved in that time , 200 plus containers now shipped direct to the retailer as well as all the containers shipped to Fortune Woods UK , first thing that enters my mind when hopefully we at last escape the bounds of the hospital is a holiday to recharge the batteries !! So that better go on the plan list for tomorrow for sure 
So how did it all start ? Well I had a vision. That vision was to bring the retailer in direct contact with the producing factories as I thought I could see around me in this industry of ours the future and how it was going to unfold – I could see all the ” add ons” that went onto a box of furniture before it ended up on your shop floor as it passed through the food chain , in some cases Chinese factory to Chinese agent , Chinese agent to British Agent , British agent to UK Wholesaler and then wholesaler to the retailer !! – one big chain of money add ons as the product arrived at your store and millions of pounds of profit made yearly by those who had all their hands on the add ons . I could see that this would never last and that the retailer in the UK market needed to deal directly with the factory , emerging at the time was Oak Furniture Land doing exactly that buying direct and selling it directly to the public in turn lowering the product value and public perception of what the public should pay for solid oak furniture . When I think back to my retail days to think we sold droves of all hanging wardrobes for £749 in oak and the public thought it was a snip , those days being long gone as the public perception has completely changed due to circumstances that are constantly unfolding .
So with all the above in mind there was no doubt to me that the retailer needed shortly to deal direct , companies were starting to emerge doing so especially online , we were heading for a worldwide economic crisis that would see the consumer going from flush to frugal as the media especially rammed down their throats , credit crunch , recession and now double dip recession. At the same time the consumer perception to the price of solid oak furniture would lower further as national advertising especially on google would determine.
Although we shipped Fortune Woods first container 12 months ago , it all started with the vision in 2010 and that’s where it all really began , to me I could see all the above happening and happening quite quickly too , the first sight of it was watching retailers who were trading profitably online even though they were buying from UK Wholesalers and paying all the add ons , suddenly they came under pressure with many getting swallowed up by those purchasing direct from China – if it could quickly happen on-line , then it would certainly hit the high street and it was only a matter of time .
As many things what ever happens in the USA eventually happens in the UK – and that’s exactly what had happened there , in 2006 I had met Gerry who was cleaning up online with Furniture in the states and he had always kept in touch of how trade was panning out the other side of the pond . It was clearly time to unite the retailer directly with the manufacturer otherwise long-term many good Independent retailers would not be able to survive the fourth coming onslaught that I believed then would happen and is now taking place in the market of ours .
2010 it was time to board the plane to China and see if it was actually possible to do so , the vision was there but could it become a realism ? After touring many factories and regions myself and my life long side kick Paul Mohamed took time to understand Chinese culture and how exactly manufacturing worked in the far east – it soon became clearly evident that all these ” Brits” who claimed to ” have factories ” was actually codswallop, the same too for many foreign Companies making the same claims in the UK market . In fact many Chinese persons claimed to own or have factories when they didn’t and were basically agents for a factory they knew – there was so many hands on furniture – no wonder the likes of Oak Furniture Land could deliver the consumer the prices far under that offered by the standard Independent !
The stalling points that firstly became clear for a UK retailer to fly to China themselves too came plainly obvious , intense volumes of one line , large deposits and required volumes – no wonder the wholesalers could take advantage at the time, Meanwhile that was no good for the UK retailer as online Companies with their UK coverage of the nation were getting in full position and were generating the required volumes to do so . The gap would clearly widen and the UK independent retailer would clearly get left behind as growth would continue mainly on price advantages .
So how were we going to do it and bridge that gap? , well the first thought was take a leaf out of their book and use the web as the bridge Between the factory and the UK retailer , the basis being order online , and the factory deliver the goods – a good thought but how do you find a factory that can do so fulfilling the retailers requirements that are quite differently from that as a wholesaler. It was for a while a very tedious task as trying to get factories to even understand the concept let alone be able to apply the requirements needed to do so.
Thankfully though we eventually got over that hurdle and it was time to progress with our new far east partners , who understood the concept and what we wanted to achieve and were prepared to finance it too . That’s when Fortune Woods decided to enter the UK market and produce product to suit . We knew then obviously it would take a while to put the whole concept together to 100 percent satisfaction of the vision , as the saying goes Rome wasn’t built-in a day, the principals had read my full brief and believed in it , which included huge investment for UK designs to be held in stock , of course I wanted the full retail package for a retailer to fully benefit from and to enable them to fill a shipment as easily as possible of mixed product . In turn as we were going to be a trade operation showing online live – I wanted a wide selection of products to ensure we attracted all different types of end consumers creating the full retail package which in turn would ensure that the Fortune Woods stockist would have more opportunity to catch the sale. Once we had the capacity in place it was time to set about designing some ranges .
2011 NEC Furniture show – all we had was an Ipad with a few images of our new designs as we wandered around chatting to retailers who were early birds on reading the original blog and could understand what we were attempting, those same customers are fine stockists today. Of course as in sales with just an Ipad with a few images we had many a rebuff from former established customers who simply could not see the smoke through the trees and without sounding rude clearly in my opinion were too short-sighted and couldn’t see what was to unfold or maybe they were just too afraid to want to hear the truth? – who knows but today the majority of those retailers have either shut down, gone out of business or in the middle of doing so. It would be unfair to go into names because maybe they just had too much on their mind to talk with the little man with the I Pad or were far too caught up in furniture politics listening to others that clouded their judgement. The fact is they just over a year later are not trading and have shut down. Ironically there is an Oak Furniture Land store in a near radius of each of their former stores. In the Home Counties was a perfect example in Reading, Tracy Price ran a great business for 4 years retailing in excess of £20,000 week in week out receiving full load deliveries every other week. She was retailing great product that she bought from the UK. An early Oak Furniture Land store opened in Reading which quickly saw her turnover drop to 3-5k instead. Consumers don’t stay loyal in todays commerce that for sure.
Tracy herself says ” The unfortunate thing was Fortune Woods started too late for us in Reading. We were an early victim of Oak Furniture Land, we did nothing wrong, we had the same displays and same products as we had when we were taking 20k a week, trade just dropped and that was it. At first we didn’t think it would affect us and we hoped they wouldn’t last. We fell into the trap of listening to the customers who visited our store and told us we were better, what we didn’t take into account was the higher percentage who were no longer coming back to our store or now not even visiting at all. Our trade was wiped out over a period of 3-4 months and every customer was looking at our prices all of a sudden. We had no choice but to close the store. Thankfully we had another store and thats where we trade from today but I dread the thought of another coming this way.”
We thank Tracy for being open and honest and allowing the publication of her comments.
When we were in position to first ship the UK designs we started with a few direct containers to reputable retailers and did so, to test the market to see if it actually all worked and the vision was correct. Understanding that some retailers were not in a position to buy direct containers we brought through a few containers to break up and distribute from our first small UK based warehouse, with the idea that all we add to the cost was to cover the extra costs of UK distribution. Again it proved to work for those who couldn’t buy direct containers.
Now we had to build the ” bridges” between the factories and the retailer. We needed the most modern and up to date technology to make it as simple as possible moving away from pen and paper, faxes and phone calls. We had to perfect something that was easily useable and accessible for the retailer to use. We didn’t want to operate the old fashioned way of talk but something that was full of facts and live updated information. This is where we spent intense hours developing both www.fortunewoods.co.uk and www.fortuneyears.com that a retailer could turn to with easy access and with a full clicks of a keyboard could see the full operation, what’s in stock, what’s not and what position stock actually was without any salesman’s waffle. Just information of facts. At first it was impossible to set up www.fortuneyears.com simply because on the other side of the water we were spending massive investment in setting up the China central warehouse and of course stocking it to the correct balances. Remember not only were we working very hard on set up in the UK but our partners in China were having to totally adapt to the UK market too, and prepare and get used to dealing directly with a retailer instead of the old fashioned route of going through a UK wholesaler, which in turn in the Vision of the market was no longer the way to go. The vision that a UK retailer could simply go online and click a few buttons and have his furniture ordered and delivered from the factory direct as much as possible to save the costs was going always to take a lot of adaption both here in the UK and especially in China to ensure at the end of the day the retailer could remain competitive in the UK market with all the changes going on. So the first set up was www.fortunewoods.co.uk which could show the stock that we were bringing to the UK. As well of this, of course the website behind the front pages that the retailer see’s immense systems had to be perfected as it was the nerve centre of the business. Again IT work doesn’t happen overnight- anyone who has set up a full online operative website will know this. The whole business had to go through the site, not just taking the orders.Something we still work on every day adding features for improvement. For instance now the new quick search feature.
Just 6 months later from walking the halls of the NEC show with an I pad. We had a wide range of products developed and perfected, we had built the beginnings of the www.fortunewoods.co.uk set up the first UK warehouse, were shipping the initial containers to direct customers, distributing through the UK too, set up the offices in Cardiff, recruited the correct staff and agents, started the building of the China central Warehouse to supply the UK and everything else all associated with it. At the same time myself and Paul constantly lived on the roads of the UK talking to customers, showing them what was coming and of course listening to their needs and feedback. It’s easy to talk but the most important factor in life is to listen. If you don’t listen you don’t learn. As well as all this was the daily reports to this blog to update everyone to what was developing so they could see the full benefit was coming.
July 2011 saw the first Fortune Woods Show at Manchester, where customers could come and see the actual quality of the products that we were talking about – quite simply the best on the market.We were the busiest stand at the show by miles as retailers could see the quality on offer and the price as well as try and understand the vision, it was our first real introduction to the UK market and started to become a reality. Was it all smooth by then? no of course it wasn’t because total perfection takes time and can’t be built in 6 months to provide the full package and our own long term aims but Retailers could now see what was fully coming.
By now we were ruffling feathers too. The UK wholesalers could comprehend what was starting to unfold and they didn’t obviously like it and in good old British tradition instead of concentrating on their own business they were more hell bent on ours and as always snide comments which is probably the polite way of saying it started to take place. Creating more gossip and slurs than a full blown episode of East Enders! We even at the show had to call security to remove a man crawling around on his hands and knees stealing our QC stickers from the back of the cabinets! You couldn’t make it up – whilst apprehended he still tried to deny his doings very red faced indeed, had he never heard of CCTV ? of course the footage clearly showed his wrong doings. I still have the video from the CCTV, I watch it weekly to bring a reminder to ignore the likes of the snipers like him. Just a shame they don’t give greater concerns to their own business but that’s a human trait i guess especially in Britain. You only have to read the tabloid press to see that on a daily basis. Build them up and knock them down! Orders obviously increased drastically from the show for UK distribution especially and we had to continue to work 24/7 each day and continue building. Too much stock coming in now for our little UK warehouse , needed a better transport Company etc etc – the list was endless but we once again cleared the hurdles. At the same time continue development went on in China too – central warehouses and new infastructure don’t happen over night I can assure you of that. Yes it would have been far easier to start with one or two ranges, but that would only delay the long term game and was not the vision, because the retailer needed the full retail package one or two ranges were not going to assist him with what was taking place in the changing retail market that was for sure. If a retailer actually saw what it took in China to put 13 ranges together, ensure all the QC,get to the right stock levels, smoothness of production and obtaining the correct capacity it would make their hair curl that’s for sure – it’s and endless task but one that had to be done to get together the full retail package of solid oak furniture ready for the forth coming market changing times. 2 ranges would simply not be enough to assist the retailer. The full retail package had to be perfected.
With Stocks now building in China central warehouse and orders flowing on direct containers we now had to develop the bridge between the factory/warehouse in China and the retailer who wanted to take full advantage and purchase completely directly and www.fortuneyears.com was born. A website that a retailer could order either a 20 foot container or 40 foot container cutting out all the UK distribution costs full of mixed product from 13 ranges. Again more development stages to tackle. Pressing the keyboard is the easy bit – infastructure again had to be put in place as the order arrives in China office in milli seconds. Today the website now carries a full live stock inventory of 13 ranges and is only now nearly perfected, but let’s remember it was only born in late November 2011 less than 6 months ago and has already taken in excess of 100 containers worth of business!
What also has come apparent is that many retailers can’t handle container business or afford them in these changing times. Due to this to be able to assist EVERY retailer, we now had to develop a new UK warehouse and fill it with stock to a high degree – thus ensuring too that all products from all ranges can be delivered within 7 days. As you know this warehouse is nearing completion and a mass of stock is now on the water to fill this warehouse and achieve this aim of everything being available to deliver in 7 days without having to order from the floating warehouse section and especially our back order section. Your consumer wants quickly we understand that hence why the build has taken place of our New Warehouse and it’s being filled with stock for full operation as described above. We are doing all this to assist that retailers can deal with the changing market, we have been very proactive very quickly to adapt to changing times as that vision each day comes more and more reality. The post below clearly shows that as 20 million members of the public received that email.
In less than 12 months the vision has become a reality – has it all been easy ? of course not. But in less than 12 months we now have in place. Central warehouse in China. 3 UK Warehouses, with the new UK central warehouse now coming into place, 13 fantastic ranges to create the full retail package. 2 fantastic online ordering websites creating easy access to ordering directly from China and ensuring you can compete in the changing market. Full and ready infastructure in both China and UK to ensure smoothness of operation for years to come with easy access to all product.
So what’s next ? – yes more!
For those retailers who can’t go via the full direct service of www.fortuneyears.com which is obviously the most competitive way, in a few hours we will launch stockists packages for those retailers who also now see the vision and which to participate obtaining ” cash discount” from the UK warehouse as a premier stockist of Fortune Woods UK to face the challenges of the changing market.
