Anniversaries and such.
It seems hard for me to believe, but we are in our tenth year. It certainly has been an interesting journey. When we launched our little company in 1999, it was a catalog with a website, and while we believed it should work, who really knows until you push the small tyke out of the nest. In fact, we had a bit of a scare after we mailed our first book and the phone hadn’t started to ring. Perhaps junior wasn’t the budding genius we thought he would be. But then our CEO at the time noticed that no one had turned off the phone night service, so all the calls were going to voicemail. As soon as we switched it over, the calls started pouring in and we began to feel better about our little venture.
Over the next 10 years we lived through the dotcom bubble (which helped get us going – thank you Steve and Bill) and the bursting of said bubble, which was far less pleasant. But as the saying goes, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The next few years were relatively uneventful and we enjoyed rather nice growth (thank you DWR customers and design enthusiasts). Then we were all shocked by the events of September 11, 2001. We were rocked to our very core and the job of selling chairs suddenly seemed far less significant. But before long we did what all people do. We mourned, we contemplated the meaning of it all and we got back to living.
Today we are working our way through an economic situation that is unprecedented in the recent history of our nation. Many people have lost their jobs and many more are concerned about the future. Our little company has certainly not gone untouched by these events. We have reduced our workforce by 30%, and our overall expenses by even more. For the last six months, our products have been on sale constantly in order to generate revenue and reduce inventories. All of this has been trying, but it has positioned us well to have a very good chance of celebrating our 20th anniversary too.
So, when our team was trying to decide how to best celebrate this milestone, it was suggested (and widely agreed upon) that we provide the people who helped us get here (that would be you folks) an opportunity to enhance their surroundings. Starting tomorrow, we will be offering you a never-seen-before (and perhaps not repeated for another decade) offer. We’ve never offered this kind of discount on our entire assortment, and you get free shipping to boot.
Over the next few weeks, you will be hearing more about what we have been up to during the last few months and what you can continue to expect in the future. For certain, it includes honesty in all we do and it does not include continuing with deep discounts. Because deep discounts indicate one of two things: Either the company that is doing the discounting is liquidating – as in “bye bye” – or their prices are artificially inflated to allow this deep discounting, which we consider less than honest.
So, we would like to get a dialogue going with all of you about pricing, quality, what you need and what we can do to bring it all together, within a framework that is DWR. What does that mean? Well, simply put, it is about the value of smart design. Staying true to the fundamental tenets of modernism, we will expand upon our ability to satisfy your need for lasting value, with products that satisfy our standards of quality and design.
So stay tuned – and let us know what you think. In the meantime, preshop our Anniversary Sale (it starts at midnight).
Thanks,
Ray Brunner
CEO
