Direct supplier and sourcing specialist Island Spring Sourcing is coming to this year’s January Furniture Show (stand 2-B20) with an outdoor furniture and BBQ proposition it its own league, says MD Marc Rogers …
What is Island Spring?
Island Spring has been sourcing and supplying white-label furniture since 2013, although its owners have been involved with furniture for over 25 years.
In 2019, we launched Rattan Republic, supplying the wholesale market with our exclusive ranges of outdoor rattan furniture. We quickly built a network of customers, supplying them with products that are keenly priced and of fantastic quality.
Our appeal came from being able to supply single units and not asking for minimum orders in terms of value or units. Despite the difficulties of the various lockdowns coming so soon after the brand’s launch, Rattan Republic was, and continues to be, a great success.
At the start of the 2021 season we launched Fogo & Chama, a Brazilian name meaning ‘fire and flame’. This brand supplies our own exclusive BBQs and pizza ovens to both the retail and wholesale markets. There are currently four different models – three gas, and one dual-fuel version. These are all kept in stock and can be dropshipped to the end customer. In addition, we have matching rain covers available to order to protect the models from the temperamental British weather!
Home Junction was also launched in 2021, and represents us, as a business, branching out from purely garden furniture. The concept of this brand is based on the idea that your home is the junction of your everyday family life.
The ambitious growth plans for this brand will see it sell beautiful and affordable products for the home to both the retail and wholesale markets. We’ll be expanding the garden ranges offered, and the January Furniture Show will see us launch rising firepit tables with corner sofas, modular sets with ceramic glass tops, reclining corner units with ice buckets, and much more. This will complement the existing ranges of garden furniture, parasols, outdoor heaters and rugs we already sell.
We currently have several of our own velvet collections, including gorgeous benches, chairs and chaises. Over the coming months, we’ll be building up the indoor ranges to further enhance our offer.
How did you come to work for Island Spring?
Like the Island Spring Group, my background is purely furniture. I’ve been involved in the furniture industry since I first started working in a part-time role in IKEA whilst at college many, many moons ago! Since then, I’ve worked in all areas of furniture and interiors, from luxury retail and interior design to wholesale supply.
Within furniture, I’ve pretty much done most roles at one stage or another. I joined Island Spring in late 2020, having worked with the founders, Wayne Prince and Iris Meijer, around 12 years ago, when we had furniture concessions within various department stores in the UK. The beauty of working together again is we know each other’s strengths, and the relationships have just picked up from where we left off.
The company’s ethos is based around providing a very personal service at all levels of interaction, so our customers feel we really have a true partnership together and they know we’re always open to helping them as much as we can.
What lines are you bringing to the January Furniture Show?
We’re coming to the show to really push our brands, Home Junction and Fogo & Chama, to the wholesale market. We have several new products launching that we’re really excited about.
Fogo & Chama will be launching our much-awaited gas pizza oven, the Red Hellion! This bad boy is finished in our Fogo red with a stainless-steel front, and will cook your homemade pizzas in a matter of minutes.
Home Junction is bringing several new pieces to the party. We have new corner sofas with firepit tables coming, some of which have ceramic glass, rising table actions and one modular version. There’s a fantastic new corner sofa with high backs, reclining back sections and an ice bucket, plus a large, six-person round dining table (again with an ice bucket). These are all brand-new models, and will greatly enhance the product offering.
How do these products align with the demands of today’s consumer?
Obviously, during the last two years, more and more people began to use their gardens and outdoor spaces as extensions of their homes for entertaining, and have looked to companies like ours for outdoor dining and seating options. We believe that these two great brands – through the retailers we work with – can offer the public the opportunity to purchase fantastic products of great quality at reasonable prices.
Plus, with many items being in stock and DHD available, we can really help the retailer offer a great service to their customer.
What sets you apart from your competitors?
As a business, we have a somewhat romantic attachment to the smaller bricks-and-mortar retail outlets, having been one of these ourselves in a previous life. These businesses currently face a tough time on the high street, and perhaps have it harder than purely online businesses.
So, as a business, we try not to put any restrictions in place in terms of trading requirements with our customers. There is no minimum order value to open an account, you can order just one set, and can have it delivered directly to the end-customer via our two-person delivery partner (BJS), if you wish. We try to keep everything we sell if not in stock here in the UK, at least on an order cycle so we have stock coming in throughout the season for people to buy into.
We’re also careful with where we sell, ensuring we don’t have accounts with stores that are too close to one another. We also try our best to ensure other sales channels are not undercutting anyone.
Finally, because of our many years of sourcing and buying many different furniture products, we have many contacts across the globe, so if a customer wants to have their own white-label version of something we already manufacture, or something completely new, we’re able to source and deliver this for them. We invest in R&D and quality control to ensure the products we offer are what the market wants, and will never just take an existing piece from any random factory to pass off as our own.
