Retail Services

An Interior Designer is a trained professional who plans and supervises the design of Interior Decoration and Furnishings of Homes, Offices and other spaces.

In Design Consultancy services, the Interior Designer provides designs and the working drawings only to the client.

HOW IT WORKS

Retail Services We Offer

Giving free or low-cost design services aren’t sustainable for the Interior Designer. We can’t pay our bills this way. The only way this works is if there is a huge volume (as in e-design services) or if they make money another way (like retail furniture store).

Ultimate Motivation

One of the main differences in clients working with a designer in a retail store and an independent designer is the designer’s ultimate motivation. Retailers Employ Designers to help sell their furniture. Selling furniture is how they make money. They want clients to buy as much of their furniture as possible – if they can employ a designer to show the client what pieces and where -they sell more furniture. More Furniture = More Profits. They do not want those clients to leave the store or see anything other than their brand of furniture. The Retail Designer will make it as easy as possible for the clients to fully furnish their homes.

Independent Interior Designers motivation should be to create the best possible outcome for the clients based on their budget, home, lifestyle, family, and aesthetic. They work for the client-not for the retail store.

Full View or Partial View

Retail Design Services are usually fairly minimal compared to full service because they want to fit as much of their furniture into the client’s space rather than taking all the components – budget, home, lifestyle, family, aesthetic – into consideration. The difference between Full Service Interior Design and Retail Design Dervices is that when going retail, there is only a small partial view of what is possible. Retail Design Services aren’t going to be making suggestions to open a wall for better flow. They won’t let you know that you can get better quality products somewhere else. They can’t assist you with products their company doesn’t sell. They aren’t sourcing bespoke or antiques. They aren’t overseeing the entire design plan and execution.

Purchasing Power

Independent Interior Designers are not limited by the products that the retailer sells. They have unlimited (almost too many!) options of manufacturers, vendors, and resources to make a home completely unique and personalized. If you get a client that wants to purchase all retail, explain the benefits of to-the-trade and if they’re still not swayed they probably aren’t the right client for you. I believe that one of the superpowers of Interior Designers should be crafting a home that is unique to the client – when all homes look like a page out of a catalog, we lose our superpower. This should not be a service Independent Interior Designers offer.