The idea for Office Furniture Ltd. came when Kendra Ador of Alive Design started receiving emails from her suppliers in the United States telling her prices were going to increase because of the tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump on China.
“Cayman is already an expensive place to do business and this was just going to make it more expensive for my clients,” says the interior designer. “I thought there had to be a way to keep costs down.”
Since the price increases from her US suppliers were a result of them importing materials and products from China, Ador’s idea was to bypass the US – and the middlemen suppliers there – by ordering directly from China.
She reached out to Ken Moore, owner of LED Specialist Ltd., who was already getting shipments directly from China for his lighting company, to see if he’d be interested in partnering on a new venture that brought furniture in directly from China. Moore said yes on one condition: the company would focus only on commercial grade furniture for offices.
On a trip to China in March, Moore meet with numerous furniture manufacturers and chose several with which to do business. Between them all, they can supply all aspects of office furniture, including desks, chairs, tables/boardroom tables, workstations, reception stations, partition walls, acoustic partitions and storage units.
The new venture had a launch event for interior designers, architects and some hospitality professionals at Next Door in Camana Bay on 19 June.
“This is all commercial-grade furniture that is bought from the factories that supply the United States and Europe,” Ador says, adding that the furniture lines include office, hospitality, education and other commercial applications.
“The range of products is huge,” she says. “Everything comes directly from the factory, so there’s no tariffs and super prices.”
The “super” part of the prices is that they’re 30% to 40% less than comparable products currently available on Grand Cayman.
Ador says the lead time for delivery is three to four months, which is about the same as it is with big orders from US suppliers.
“We offer free delivery and free installation and can provide design support through Alive Design,” she says.
Because the orders are made through the factory, all orders are customisable.
“We can customise everything,” says Moore. “We can specifically match your branding colours and even add company logos to a reception wall.”
Although most US companies have limited numbers of sizes for office furniture, Moore says even the sizes are customisable through Office Furniture Ltd.
“We will be pretty disruptive to the norm here in Cayman,” says Moore, “and that benefits the consumer since we’re not affected in any way by tariffs.”
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There used to be a business in Geoge Town that imported household furniture from China. It was of the highest quality and very reasonably priced. Now is the time to revive this operation and save the customer money. I still have a number of items from this source mostly crafted in rosewood and beautifully made, including a large display cabinet, an office desk and side tables.
Why would anyone want to buy anything from China?