ArchitectureAU: Kahn, your arrival as trade manager at King Living coincides with the relaunch of King’s trade and commercial program. What exactly is KingTrade?
Kahn Morkaya: That’s right. We’re taking a whole new approach to working with trade and commercial partners, to make it as easy as possible for designers to integrate King Living into commercial projects. We’ve taken it down two avenues: one is to make our pricing as advantageous as possible, and the other is to give designers the flexibility to customise our products to work with the spaces they’re creating.
Kahn Morkaya, trade manager at King Living.
Image: Supplied
AAU: Let’s talk about pricing. Are you offering a flat discounted price or is it more structured than that?
KM: Firstly, we’re offering one low price all year round for our trade partners. That’s not just a token thing – the trade price is always the best price. But we’ve also introduced a tiered pricing structure that gives our partners additional loyalty discounts based on their level of spend per calendar year.
AAU: You also mentioned the ability to customise the product.
KM: Well, we know that Australian designers and architects love to use fabrics and leathers from other companies. So because we have an Australian manufacturing facility here in Sydney, we’re offering exclusive use of that to our trade partners to be able to select an out-of-house fabric or leather and have it used on our product, with a larger discount than what we’ve ever offered before. That’s not available to retail customers – it’s an exclusive benefit to our trade partners.
AAU: So a designer can specify a King Living product and match its colour and texture to a bespoke interior?
KM: Exactly. We have a team who specialise in recovering King Living furniture so we thought, why not take advantage of that and support our designers to create something different to what you see in a showroom. They can now take the classic silhouette of a Jasper sofa, for example, and customise it to their preferred upholstery to create a completely unique sofa.
Our product designs can be modified too, depending on order volumes. Being a vertically integrated company, it allows us to have full control from design through to manufacturing, and delivery.
KingTrade members can specify products like this Kato lounge upholstered in any fabric or leather.
Image: Supplied
AAU: This resonates with current conversations about sustainability and the circular economy, the idea of changing the look of furniture over time rather than buying more.
KM: Well, durability is a key aspect of sustainability, and our steel frames really lend themselves to the commercial world because they’re just so robust. We need to move away from this idea of throwing everything out every few years and starting again. Updating the look and feel of an existing product is a great way to achieve that.
In addition to that, our KingCare service allows you to replace any part of a product, whenever you like. So if you just need to replace a leg or a cover or a seat cushion you can do that, and you’re not throwing away a whole product.
AAU: Where in the commercial design world are you seeing King Living products being specified?
KM: Oh, all kinds of projects. We’ve had a huge response to our outdoor category, especially for hotels. We understand the needs of hoteliers and the like with what the requirements are and as such can offer a level of product customisations on our designs to ensure the end product is fit for purpose.
In office environments, our armchairs and sofas have been very popular. Post-Covid there’s a real theme of designing workplaces that feel less corporate and more comfortable, more home-like, so we can offer a full suite of products there. And then dining categories, which play a role in everything from hospitality and hotels to workplaces.
Presented by King Living. You can find out more about King Trade and apply for membership here.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
