When brothers Alexander and Peter Spalding started an interior design practice, Daniel House Studios, in Portland, Ore. in 2015, they quickly learned how difficult procuring furniture can be. It is complex and takes a lot of time, which costs the typical design firm a lot of money.
They wanted to be creative, not spend all their time finding products, managing vendors and handling logistics. They wanted to find a better way, an online platform that would simplify sourcing and logistics so designers could focus on designing. Daniel House Club was born.
Chief Executive Officer Alexander Spalding and Chief Brand Officer Peter Spalding designed Daniel House Club (named after their father, Daniel) as a platform that simplifies sourcing and logistics in furniture procurement. All orders have the same flat shipping terms and are priced so small designers can build margin in their business.
While Daniel House Club is effectively an online dealer with discounting margin going to the designer instead of the dealer, it truly acts as a club. The platform, which hosts more than 150 vendors, offers three membership options, Free, Pro and Pro+, which provide vetted designers with increasing levels of discounting and reduced shipping. It has concierge service to help designers with the purchasing process.
They said when they owned the design firm, “Profitability was always a challenge because procuring furniture takes a lot of work,” said Peter Spalding. “You usually don’t get very good margin when you first start out and you’re not able to offer all that much of interest to customers because as a newer designer, you don’t have a whole lot of accounts and building them up is really, really challenging.
“So about five years in, we were starting to get good at that and realized that it really drove a lot more of our profit at that point and wanted to expand that and our ability to make financially wise recommendations to our customers.”
The pair started on the back end of its system, building out a catalog where they could monitor all of their accounts and their price points all in one place. Standing before their client, they knew what something cost, how much they were going to make, how much they would need to sell it for and have a rough idea on shipping.
“Pretty soon after we started developing that for ourselves we said, ‘Hey, wouldn’t this be great for other designers? We were talking to designers who had been doing it for 30 years and were in the same place we were,” said Peter Spalding.
Daniel House Club is open to any designer or design firm, but the brothers said it is most beneficial for small- to mid-sized interior designer — generally any design firm that has not grown large enough to have a dedicated procurement specialist.
Though it started out geared more toward residential projects, which still make up a majority of its work, it has branched out recently to add more and more commercial products. And since the platform includes hundreds of thousands of furniture and lighting products, commercial designers will find much to explore.
The company started during the pandemic, which turned out to be helpful as the more traditional furniture makers were forced to think about online sales. Daniel House Club tripled in size last year and has more than 4,000 designer members. When the company first started, they thought of themselves more as a tool for designers. “Now, we want to be a cool place to shop and be the quickest place to find and actually buy what you’re looking for if you’re a designer,” said Peter Spalding.
Daniel House Club has three membership levels. The free option is just that. Designers can shop on the platform for free and still get a 30% trade discount and flat shipping. A Pro account is $9 a month or $99 a year, which gets designers a 40% trade discount and a lower shipping rate. Pro+ membership is $129 a month and offers a 50% trade discount and its lowest shipping rates.
The platform includes a wide array of vendors. Although most are focused on residential, as the lines blur between home and contract furniture, commercial designers will find much of what they are already specifying. Brands that work in both home and office settings, such as Bernhardt and Humanscale are on the platform. Alexander Spalding said more commercial brands are being added all the time. “We’ve been described as a trade showroom with a shoppable site,” he said.
The brothers understand the commercial furniture industry and don’t expect brands with strong aligned dealer networks like MillerKnoll, Steelcase and Haworth to sign onto the site, but they do hope to attract the majority of other non-aligned brands. They prioritize working with reliable vendors and quality furniture makers, ensuring that designers have upfront pricing information to make informed decisions.
Daniel House Club offers white glove shipping, but currently does not offer commercial installation. They work with shipping consolidators around the country, some of whom do offer installation. Currently, commercial installation can be organized by Daniel House Club if the designer reaches out to the company.
One of the key features of Daniel House Club is its concierge service, which provides personalized assistance to designers throughout the purchasing process. The concierge team is knowledgeable about the vendors and products available on the platform and can help designers with any questions or concerns they may have. The platform also provides training sessions to help designers navigate the site and make the most of its features. The company is based in Portland, but operates nationally and also sells in Canada.