New furniture design success

For 15 years Tauranga businessman Craig Nees imported an American-made kitset wardrobe range. But he's been involved with retailing long enough to know consumers' tastes and styles change.
Mr Nees, managing director of International Merchants NZ (IML), had to find a new product.
With the help of Mount Maunganui-based Locus Research, a new mix-and-match kitset storage system called Getsorted was designed. The innovative system is made up of wardrobes, drawers, shelves and cabinets for the bedroom, lounge and office.
The environmentally friendly furniture units, in maple or white, are interchangeable and adjustable, depending on the space.
Now, the locally developed Getsorted range is being distributed to the Bunnings Warehouse stores in Australia and New Zealand. IML's first shipment to Australia from the Chinese factories was 34 containers, and the product will soon be supplied to the Mitre 10 Mega stores in New Zealand.
"The previous storage system was no longer footing the bill," Mr Nees said. "Retail customers liked dealing with us and suggested we design and develop a new programme for them to sell."
"It took considerable investment and it was a big decision. But we either had to go forward or out of storage. We were losing market share."
That was two years ago. A project team led by Rogier Simons, of Locus Research, devised a well-made, flexible system with new features. All the drawers have metal bases, and with the cabinets they are ventilated for air flow to stop mildew and dampness and keep clothes fresh and dry.
The units are made of E-Zero particleboard and finished off with a hard-wearing laminate foil surface. The fittings include metal handles and heavy-duty drawer runners. The packaging is biodegradable.
The project team came up with product range half the price of equivalent quality. The Getsorted system fits the middle retail market, and consumers can put it together with just a single Phillips screwdriver.
The system, and the kitsets, are displayed over two bays in the Bunnings Warehouse stores, and consumers are provided with a brochure that shows, graphically, how the furniture units fit together.
"It's a clear and simple picture - we wanted to make the system user friendly and cost effective," said Mr Nees. "We have ended up with something that is quite unique in the world, from what we can tell.
"Because of the versatility, quality and add-on features in the storage system, I doubt anyone can offer as much value for money. Already, the sales have outperformed all our expectations."
Mr Nees said his company would not have reached this stage without the talented Locus Research team's input.
"It's exciting working with the younger age group. They are intuitive, they can think laterally, and they are flexible.
"They turned our ideas into manufacturing drawings, they added the intellectual property and together we came up with the name, Getsorted. Normally kitset furniture, by design, can be fragile but they made it sturdy and durable."
IML - its office and warehouse is based in Maru St, Mount Maunganui - had earlier worked with Locus Research and another local company, Jafsco, to market the Littl' Juey weedcutting line trimmer.
Locus is continuing its involvement by designing additional Getsorted products.
The Getsorted range is made at three factories near Shanghai - each specialises in metal, wood and plastic - and the IML/Locus team provides a production checklist, or manual, to maintain quality.
After production started in June, the first shipment landed in Australia in September and the product has been distributed to 130 Bunnings stores, with 38 to go. Bunnings has 70 per cent of the home-improvement market in Australia.
The Getsorted kitsets went into the 19 Bunnings Warehouses in New Zealand in November, and the product will start being rolled out in Mitre 10 Mega stores in the Auckland region in the second week of May.
Mr Nees expects to send eight to 10 containers of product a month, or 90-110 containers a year, to the Australian and New Zealand markets when production, and re-orders, hit full steam.
Now, Mr Nees is looking further afield. He wants to crack two more offshore markets by the end of the year. He has sales meetings organised in Southeast Asia, South Africa (he already sells the Littl' Juey product there) and Dubai in May, and in the US, Canada, Britain, Germany and Holland in June.
"It could be United States/Canada, South Africa or UK/Europe - we are working on the DIY home improvement warehouse stores for the Getsorted system. We now have runs on the board and our export customers see the product as a serious option for them.
The IML team of 10 manufactures and exports an insulated ceiling hatch and Littl' Juey line trimmer and cutting heads, as well as the Getsorted furniture range.
Mr Nees also has exclusive rights to supply the American-made Latitudes composite wood/plastic decking system to Australia and New Zealand. He has set up a second company, Permadeck, to operate this business, which is also based at the Mount premises.
"We do 10 to 12 containers a month to New Zealand and Australia (for Latitudes), and it's growing," said Mr Nees.
"All the products we distribute, we have exclusivity. More and more, we are moving to control our own destiny," he said.