Zinc Home offers a vast selection of home decor, accessories, giftware and artwork. Through its ever-expanding portfolio, Zinc combines current trends and colour palettes with a unique design handwriting to create fresh and innovative products, explains sales director Claire Bell …
After 20 years in the furniture retail and home design business, Claire decided to partner with a successful German supplier to bring a range of unique collections to the UK marketplace – and she has not looked back since.
“Having retailed these ranges for many years, I already had experience of the collection’s quality and diversity, so presenting it to the trade came naturally,” says Claire. “I knew that the product selection was fantastic, and always progressive.”
This propensity to evolve has served Zinc Home well – particularly given today’s heightened demand for home accessories. Yet while Zinc’s lines have worked well online, it is in-store that they truly shine, says Claire.
“We’re really getting behind bricks-and-mortar stores,” she says. “That’s our main market. And, whilst we’re proud of the Zinc brand, we’re keen to get behind our stockists’ own brands and help them to market our products.”
With this strategy in mind, Zinc Home has debranded some of its ranges, giving retailers greater control over pricing and an added safeguard against being undercut by online rivals.
“We don’t want to encourage ‘showrooming’ at our stockists’ expense,” Claire explains, “and our products really need to be inspected in person, to appreciate their quality – for Zinc Home, it’s incredibly important that we offer pieces that we’d choose for our own homes, right down to every last detail.”
This is true across Zinc’s ranges, which vary from modern to traditional. Many are made in Europe with the help of Danish and Portuguese designers, and nothing goes to market unless it has been thoroughly tested.
“Loyalty is an important – yet often lacking – part of the supplier/retailer relationship,” says Claire, “and an emphasis on loyalty, uniqueness and quality is the driving force behind our brand.”
Zinc offers three distinctive and exclusive collections, all backed up with good UK stocks, enabling it to work with retailers of every size and style. “Our current retail partners have enjoyed the diversity of our collections – especially the larger stores, which may have a dedicated homewares/gift shop, but might also have a design department or need larger pieces to dress the furniture around the showrooms,” Claire explains.
Prospective stockists can contact Claire on [email protected] to discuss their specific selection and display requirements, or avail of Zinc’s curated product packages – while a B2B webshop enables retailers and their teams to access Zinc’s sales platform 24/7.
