Elijus Noreika, MD and owner of TCH Furniture, answers Furniture News’ questions surrounding his company's strongest product area …
What is your current bestseller?
With the bedroom furniture category being so popular within TCH, there’s a new range introduced to the market every season. The most recent one, yet reaching the heights of current bestsellers, is the Cromwell bedroom range.
Designed exclusively for TCH, it features a combination of subtle pastel paint finishes and natural solid European oak. Complemented by soft curves and profiles, which evoke a traditional French style, the combination of the colour, natural oak and bright nickel plated hardware gives it a fresh look that suits both modern and country living.
To satisfy the needs of every customer, the Cromwell bedroom range comes painted with oak tops as well as with the option to have it completely in oak.
What are your historic bestsellers, and why are they so popular?
Even though according to the latest trends our customers seem to favour painted ranges. Historically our bestselling established range is Windsor, a natural oak furniture collection, which has classic good looks and a wide variety of furniture pieces including bedroom, living and dining.
The key selling point of this collection is that we constantly strive to improve our offering to the customers by adding new finishes, handle options as well as different sizes, which allows us to add a fresh look to our well-established collection. The Windsor range is well made, good looking and good value. As I like to say – it’s furniture made to last.
What trends are you currently experiencing?
While oak will always be popular, when it comes to the bedroom, this year homeowners are opting for painted pieces. The pastel and neutral colours that TCH can offer give a subtle, sophisticated look to the furniture and suit any home.
Across the standard natural oak finishes like oil or lacquer, a new trend in the market is brushed oak combined with sleek lines and antique handles, to give that timeless feeling and sense of nature.
Have customer preferences changed much over time?
Since our living spaces are shrinking, we have seen furniture with a smaller profile over time that gives more of a contemporary look.
Customisation of furniture seems to be a trend that continues to develop and evolve – as we produce each piece of furniture to order, the choice of fabric, handles and colour can be offered with the same lead time as with standard pieces.
What are the key issues affecting your bestselling product at a retail level?
Providing our stockists with unique character and helping to stand out from the competition is crucial in today’s retail business. Therefore TCH is constantly looking for opportunities to make our furniture special and wanted. A secret drawer behind the top profile on all bedroom pieces is unique to TCH ranges and has already become a standard.
We are always supporting our retailers with the best marketing material and as much information as they need. It is essential that the knowledge about our products is always available for our customers. Exceptional customer service is another strength that we have developed over the years, which I believe is very important in order to grow the relationships with our stockists.
… and at a supply level?
Quality. Each piece is individually made and the oak is crafted from the finest selection of European oak, sourced from sustainable and responsibly-managed forests. Unique to TCH, the manufacturing process actually starts with the slicing of the logs, to kiln drying, and then through the whole manufacturing process, all within the factory’s control.
What are your observations on how best to retail your bestselling product?
It needs to be presented in a clean, natural and sophisticated way, to be completed with a hint of stylish, yet modern decor pieces. Personal preferences can be adopted when choosing the fabric and handles, to suit any style of shopfloor.
The key in selling bedroom furniture is the home feeling – the lighting to create cosiness and comfort, pillows and duvets to match the style of the furniture, and other details to make it unique.
What is your personal preference?
As for bedroom, I would opt for a painted range with an oak top, most probably Cromwell. I would choose a pastel finish such as Toasted Almond, combined with our latest mist finish for the oak tops.
This article ran in the October 2015 edition of Furniture News magazine.
