Author: Lisa PARSONS

Posted on

Contract Upholstery Fabric – How to Specify It

For KOTHEA’s contract ranges, with rub counts and fire ratings, see our contract upholstery fabric page.

For a comprehensive guide to specifying fabric for hotel and hospitality projects, including Martindale thresholds by room type, BS 7176 fire certification, cleaning regime compatibility, and dye lot strategy, see: How to Specify Fabric for Hotel and Hospitality Projects.

A quick guide to specifying contract upholstery fabrics. The main areas to consider are as follows.

1. Determine Use

Is it panelling or seating? For seating you will need to consider flammability (cigarette, match, and Crib 5) and abrasion (Martindale).

2. Fabric Composition

The composition of the fabric including the yarn and weave will affect long-term wear, appearance, and technical performance. Natural fabrics such as wool can be more expensive but generally offer good handle and technical characteristics including natural flame retardancy. Man-made fabrics are usually easier to maintain but require careful selection to achieve the right aesthetic.

3. Flammability

The standard for contract seating acceptable throughout the EU is EN 1021 Parts 1 and 2 (cigarette and match). Higher-level standards in the UK are BS 5852 Crib 5 and BS 7176. The standard for vertical surface fabrics is BS 476 Part 7. For a full explanation see our complete guide to BS 5852 Crib 5.

4. Abrasion

Check the Martindale rub count for the fabric. For contract seating in hotels, restaurants, and offices, a minimum of 40,000 Martindale rubs is the standard threshold.

5. Environmental Considerations

Natural fibres such as wool generally have better environmental credentials than synthetic alternatives. Nylon in particular has a high environmental impact.

6. Care and Maintenance

Contract fabrics typically deteriorate from dirt accumulation rather than abrasion. Cleaning requirements vary by fabric. Contact KOTHEA for the cleaning code for the range you are specifying, and see our guide to upholstery cleaning codes.

Request Samples

Order cutting samples of any fabric from our current collections. Trade accounts only.

Order Cuttings

Or call +44 (0)20 8943 4904 or email info@kothea.com

Posted on

Interior Designers & SEO (Whatever That Is)

Not another one! If, like you, I get another email from some far off land asking me if I want my web site redesigned or SEOd I will go crazy. What do these people know about my business? I’m a designer and my business is different! They are just techy nerds (maybe techie wierdos let’s not get personal).

Well let’s clear a few things up.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimzation. Great, but so what?

Well what that means is that if you do SEO properly your website will probably appear a bit higher in Google’s search results. Probably. And that is a good thing, right? Right!

Although having said that ‘it is a good thing’, it depends on how you do business. If your website is not a lead generator (which it is not for many interior designers) then yes it is still a good thing but maybe not THAT good that it merits time, effort and money being invested into it.

However, let’s for a moment assume that you care that when a potential customer types in something like “find interior designer London”. A not unreasonable assumption and also something that IS TYPED into Google quite a bit (I know, I checked, honest!).

So you do want your web site listed right up there with the great and the good? And as you are still reading I assume your website is not one of those listed on the frist page.

Basically ‘all’ you have to do is

1. Figure out every set of key words and phrases that a potential client will use and repeat them a few times in your site.

2. Get a high google pagerank (a technical thing that you don’t really have to worry about).

But that is VERY DIFFICULT to do AND very TIME CONSUMING.

But even when you have done that and people come to your web site what will they do when they are there? Will they read how great you are? Read about your services? Read about YOUR business history/profile. Maybe. But really people are not that interested in you or even your business really. What they ARE interested in is what YOUR BUSINESS can do for them and can you be TRUSTED to do it properly.

So really now we have got sidetracked and gone off on several tangents. However we are brought back to the SIMPLE SOLUTION.

Just create a web site with compelling content that is frequently updated. THAT IS ALL YOU HAVE TO DO. IF YOU DO THAT THEN ALL THE SEO STUFF AND PAGERANK TAKES CARE OF ITSELF and people who get to your site stay there and have a poke around.

Once again, it’s not rocket science.  A word of warning though, a SEO consultant will make it expensive rocket science. So don’t bother with them. just add some pretty and interesting stuff to your site.

Posted on

Interior Designers Get Repeat Customers – How To

We all do it don’t we? We sometimes are so keen to grow the business that we focus too much on getting new customers. We forget that it’s much easier to keep existing customers and sell to them, sometimes it’s good to evaluate your strategy in the light of this truth that we all know.

Marketing has progressed a thousandfold in its acronym use since the 4-Ps (Product, Price, Promotion & Place/Distribution). The latest variant to the customer retention model is the 5-Ss. SERVICE, SEGMENTATION, SELLING, SYSTEMS and, oh yes, SERVICE (again)!

I would argue that by looking again at your strategy in these 5 (four!) key areas of marketing there is a good chance that you will find opportunities to generate more revenues from your existing customers.

Step one: Segmentation – Successful sales organisations segment customers by their buying behaviour: are they loyal and relationship-based, value-seeking or fickle, transactional or price-driven? You should treat each group differently and expect different responses. For example, constant stimulus and repetition of sales offers works best with fickle transaction-based customers. A more subtle, less ‘hard sell’ approach is needed with loyal and relationship-centred customers.

Step two: Service – High service standards help build a brick wall around your customers. They may be tempted away by crazy prices but your superior service levels will make it hard for them to leave. Make sure your service is as good as you think it is. If you have time then use customer surveys (but use them well) and conduct one-on-one reviews with top customers. Do what one successful business I know does: each senior manager calls one customer a week simply to check that all is well and to tell them that they value their business. Good service sells repeat business.

Step three: Systems – Examine whether your systems are working for you or against you. Do they flag up soon-to-end contracts early enough? Is there a robust system in place to ensure that the customer is contacted? That the contact is followed up? Sage Act is as good as any.

Step four: Selling Do you still actively sell to existing customers? It’s ironic that no one knows a customer better than their existing providers, yet all too often we fail to sell to existing customers. We don’t want to seem greedy, or we worry being pushy might damage the relationship. Often, we’ll take the view that we’ve ‘already got what we came for’. Yet, customers expect us to come to them with new ideas and new offers, they want us to innovate and help them. If we’ve been doing our job properly they’ll want to stay with us. So why surrender that hard-won ground to the hungry competition?

Think, too, about your reward systems. Are you paying people only to win new business, or are you also rewarding highly profitable, but less glamorous, customer retention activity?

Customer retention is one key to profit and business stability, but it’s often (still) overlooked. Review your segmentation, your service, your systems and your selling, and seize the opportunities within your grasp.

Posted on

Got A Crush On Velvet?

Crushed Velvet – something a bit different from one of our new 2010 Velvets. One of the advantages of many velvets is their suitability for many uses including upholstery, panelling, cushions and curtains. Our new Crushed Velvet is no exception with a Martindale of over 40,000 for a 145cm wide fabric. (See also Martindale vs. Wyzenbeek for an explanation of the difference)

Our Crushed Velvet design comes in 12 colourways. Each colourway is a two-tone colour mix some mixes are similar such as pink+red whereas others more contrasting like the purple+green (shown). The composition is a cotton mix.

The unique texture and colourways make this a striking fabric useful as a highlight to any luxury scheme.

Related Articles
Posted on

Interior Designer? Did Your Web Site Just Pop Up In My Search?

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGWQ-4lnwG0]Interior Designers increasingly understand the need to reach at least part of their target market through online search results.

With that in mind I have been looking through a few search terms that potential customers of interior designers might use. Unsurprisingly lots of interior designers popped up.

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

But one thing that I noticed was that VERY few of you were making use of video.

I know it takes a long time to do these things to a reasonable degree of quality but I would suggest it is worth it.

The reason being that Kelly Hoppen popped up again and again. She is obviously a renowned interior designer of the first degree BUT she also appreciates the importance of PR to her new business generation activities. The internet is not much more than PR … just the digital kind.

Why did Kelly appear? Well google doesn’t favour her over you, that much is true. Google does not think that she is better than you. However Google DOES put more emphasis sometimes on non textual information eg pictures and videos. So her video (above) popped up. When you go and check it out, YOUTUBE takes you through lots more of her videos. Before I knew it I had spent 15 minutes looking at her work and hearing her views.

Now if you go to your web site designer and ask them to talk to your ISP and get the stats for YOUR web site, you will probably find that the average visitor spends MUCH less than one minute on your site.

Food for thought.

Related articles
Posted on

Black Velvet – Even Better Italian Silk Velvet In Black

Black Velvet – only to be enjoyed by those who appreciate that black is the new black! KOTHEA have a range of velvets with shades of black colourways in most of those velvet collections.

“Black Diamond” is the colourway name for the Italian Silk Velvet (100% Silk Pile) with the code 777-108-900.

You can get black silk velvet samples here from KOTHEA if you are a trade professional. Just click the link.

KOTHEA velvets are the best in the market. We only sell top market fabrics, mostly to top European Interior Designers and Architects. Here are some more bits of technical information on our black Italian Silk velvet fabric:

Width: 140cm

Composition: 100% Silk Pile

No repeat, plain.

Abrasion: Martindale 20,000.

Available from stock, normal delivery within 5 days.

Minimum Order length: 2m

Posted on

100% Design Exhibition

The 100% design exhibition is about to kick off.

Normally the preserve of the up and coming designers this exhibition is a bit thin on the ground when it comes to the more serious fabric companies. Still the fabric companies that do exhibit there tend to stand out.

So would an established fabric company in Chelsea Harbour gain new customers from Focus (aka Chelsea Harbour Design Week) or would they just be exhibiting to the already converted. Maybe (if given the choice) exhibiting at 100% Design would give them a clear run at their target audience – albeit a smaller one?

Just a thought.

Also 100% design tended to be at the forefront of some industry trends. Maybe it will be this year as well, I hope so. But you have to say that Decorex have pulled into a marketing lead with the look and feel of their pre-event marketing. As I said in a previous post the latter’s logo and indeed their whole web site is very slick. Great on-trend design.