Tapestria, a Managed Marketplace by Hunter Douglas
May 15, 2001
Upper Saddle River, NJ (USA) – Hunter Douglas has launched the first international business-to-business marketplace for top-range interior fabrics with Tapestria (www.tapestria.com). There, designers can find, view and order materials from an extensive online catalogue, at competitive prices. The fabrics are delivered by UPS express service. Hunter Douglas activated the site in March in the U.S. and said recently that it planned launches in the U.K. in July, followed by France, Germany, and then later the rest of Europe.
Hunter Douglas said that it built the site because it is convinced that the market for high-end furnishing and upholstery fabrics lacks an efficient distribution structure – a problem that HD claims is responsible for increasing costs by as much as 35%.
"At the moment, it takes 12 to 18 months to launch a new product on the market," said David Sonnenberg, Tapestria founder and CEO and former managing director of Hunter Douglas Europe. "With our system, which combines the latest e-business technologies with the global infrastructure of Hunter Douglas, the time to market is reduced to a matter of days."
Tapestria required an initial investment of approximately $25 million. Sonnenberg, by proportional investment, holds a 20% interest in the venture. The system offers both suppliers and clients a full online trading system at considerably lower prices than traditional wholesalers. Sonnenberg said that the selling prices of products offered on Tapestria should be 30-50% cheaper than current market prices. Tapestria manages marketing and distribution, while the manufacturers are responsible for their own price policy and stock management.
Manufacturers will gain access to the system via an exclusive contract, and they will be required to prove that they "meet our high quality standards, that their business processes are capable of operating with the system, and that they have a stock management organization," said Sonnenberg. He said that suppliers must always adhere to certain quality requirements. Before shipping to the customer, all the fabrics are checked by Tapestria. If the suppliers fail to meet their obligations, their products can be taken off the site.
On the other hand, the mills are free to decide which of their fabrics they want to offer in which countries and at which price. There is no longer any need to have expensive sample books made. The manufacturers supply photographs of their fabrics and properly-structured specifications. They pay Tapestria a flat fee for uploading their fabrics in the database as well as a distribution margin on sales. The mills deliver their bolts of material to a large central warehouse where they are cut down to order.
The range of fabrics carried by Tapestria is aimed at top-level interior designers and decorators in Europe and the States. Once they have been accepted as a member, they are kept informed about the collection as well as on trends and other related topics. These customers can place their orders online and can track the status of these orders at any time. To help them choose a fabric, they can make use of advanced search tools that enable easy and quick searching for a particular fabric by specifying color, price, and other characteristics. Any samples requested are delivered by UPS within 48 hours.
At the introduction of Tapestria, interior specialists were given online access to 5,000 fabrics produced by more than 40 leading mills in Belgium, France, Holland, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.A. This number is expected to grow to more than 25,000 fabrics by the end of 2002.
Hunter Douglas, with headquarters in Rotterdam, is a world leader in the field of window covering and a major manufacturer of architectural products. The group comprises 145 companies, with 62 manufacturing units, 83 assembly plants, and marketing organizations in more than 80 countries. The group employs 15,000 people and its sales amounted to EUR 1.4 billion in 1999.
Hunter Douglas said that it built the site because it is convinced that the market for high-end furnishing and upholstery fabrics lacks an efficient distribution structure – a problem that HD claims is responsible for increasing costs by as much as 35%.
"At the moment, it takes 12 to 18 months to launch a new product on the market," said David Sonnenberg, Tapestria founder and CEO and former managing director of Hunter Douglas Europe. "With our system, which combines the latest e-business technologies with the global infrastructure of Hunter Douglas, the time to market is reduced to a matter of days."
Tapestria required an initial investment of approximately $25 million. Sonnenberg, by proportional investment, holds a 20% interest in the venture. The system offers both suppliers and clients a full online trading system at considerably lower prices than traditional wholesalers. Sonnenberg said that the selling prices of products offered on Tapestria should be 30-50% cheaper than current market prices. Tapestria manages marketing and distribution, while the manufacturers are responsible for their own price policy and stock management.
Manufacturers will gain access to the system via an exclusive contract, and they will be required to prove that they "meet our high quality standards, that their business processes are capable of operating with the system, and that they have a stock management organization," said Sonnenberg. He said that suppliers must always adhere to certain quality requirements. Before shipping to the customer, all the fabrics are checked by Tapestria. If the suppliers fail to meet their obligations, their products can be taken off the site.
On the other hand, the mills are free to decide which of their fabrics they want to offer in which countries and at which price. There is no longer any need to have expensive sample books made. The manufacturers supply photographs of their fabrics and properly-structured specifications. They pay Tapestria a flat fee for uploading their fabrics in the database as well as a distribution margin on sales. The mills deliver their bolts of material to a large central warehouse where they are cut down to order.
The range of fabrics carried by Tapestria is aimed at top-level interior designers and decorators in Europe and the States. Once they have been accepted as a member, they are kept informed about the collection as well as on trends and other related topics. These customers can place their orders online and can track the status of these orders at any time. To help them choose a fabric, they can make use of advanced search tools that enable easy and quick searching for a particular fabric by specifying color, price, and other characteristics. Any samples requested are delivered by UPS within 48 hours.
At the introduction of Tapestria, interior specialists were given online access to 5,000 fabrics produced by more than 40 leading mills in Belgium, France, Holland, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.A. This number is expected to grow to more than 25,000 fabrics by the end of 2002.
Hunter Douglas, with headquarters in Rotterdam, is a world leader in the field of window covering and a major manufacturer of architectural products. The group comprises 145 companies, with 62 manufacturing units, 83 assembly plants, and marketing organizations in more than 80 countries. The group employs 15,000 people and its sales amounted to EUR 1.4 billion in 1999.