Using Thick Natural Full-Grain Leather
Utilizing Eco-Friendly Premium Materials
Direct Manufacturing, Not OEM
176% Increase in Sales Last Year
[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chunhan] The core of furniture company Warehouse is trust and reliability. Even if labor costs are high and production volume is somewhat low, they do not deceive consumers and make products properly.
Kim Ki-young (54), CEO of the furniture brand Truefurniture, emphasized honesty throughout the interview. He said the brand name Truefurniture symbolizes a promise to himself to conduct business honestly. Kim is a veteran who has focused on the furniture industry for nearly 30 years since entering it in his early 20s in 1992. He established Warehouse in the mid-2000s and launched and leads the Truefurniture brand.
What Kim values most are technology and materials. For leather products, thick natural full-grain leather is used. Inexpensive sofas use Dokko leather (leather coated with film on the inner side, not full-grain leather) instead of full-grain or split leather. While competitors’ leather thickness is 1.3?1.5 mm, Truefurniture’s products use 2.0?2.2 mm thickness. For accessories, instead of latex that hardens in winter, they use BlueTex, an eco-friendly premium material. This causes raw material costs to be about 70,000 to 100,000 KRW higher than competitors. Additionally, a method of attaching a 6 mm bonded sponge and mesh layer to the back of sofa leather is applied to prevent leather stretching.
All manufacturing and processes take place at the headquarters (factory) located in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province. Instead of an OEM production method, they directly manufacture products to manage quality via a hotline. Kim said, "We make products that we can recommend to our family," adding, "Our prices are about 13?15% lower than competitors, and we use materials that are 10?15% better." This management policy has positively impacted performance. Truefurniture’s sales in 2020 increased by about 176% compared to the previous year.
Truefurniture has steadily increased its directly operated stores mainly in various department stores and marts, and since 2018, it has expanded its activities by building an online store on the global e-commerce platform Cafe24. Next year, it plans to expand its business by establishing its own factory and showroom.
Kim said, "Even if consumers do not know much about furniture, I believe it is wrong to introduce products made with low-quality leather as good products," adding, "I want to eliminate the excessive profits taken at each stage of supplying leather and accessories, production, and distribution, and return the company’s legitimate profits to consumers at reasonable prices."
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