Furnituredesignmarket.com (FDM) is the first global marketplace that links furniture designers to furniture buyers. A designer uploads a 3D-drawing of a sofa to Furnituredesignmaket.com's database. Furnituredesignmarket.com will by request provide a FOB price from one of its five producers connected to the database, or offer prospective buyers and producers a production and sales license agreement for the requested product. FDM can also offer furniture buyers specific freight prices for shipping their sofas to 34 different ports in 21 different countries.

If a buyer wants to buy a product from one of Furnituredesignmarket.com's production sites, these five factories are divided into four different segments:

• Volume segment (shipment from two different ports in China, in Shenzhen and Qingdao)
• Mid-Range segment (shipment from one port in Estonia) 
• High End segment (shipment from one port in Western Norway)
• Outdoor segment (shipment from Shanghai, China) 
                                                                                                                                           

The designer chooses the segment for his/her sofa.

Another unique feature of Furnituredesignmarket.com is our cooperation with the global container freight company Green Carrier. The service "container split" allows smaller furniture shops around the world to order sofas from our site, since the minimum order quantity is 5 sofas.

Furnituredesignmarket.com provides designers with an unique opportunity to commercialize their products by administrating their own royalty-based portfolio. Designers receive 5% royalty for every sold product on our site.

Furniture buyers, including smaller furniture shops, get access to a database that contains only genuine design sofas, either through a production and sales lisence agreement or directly linked up to Furnituredesignmarket's producers.

“The only way to prevent Asian factories from producing replicas of classic design furniture is to contribute to replace Western buyers’ demand for such products with an easy access to new and original design. If there is no demand for replicas, they will not be produced. FDM’s goal is to give buyers from all over the world the opportunity to buy new and original design, while at the same time giving furniture designers from all corners of the Globe the chance to make a living as independent furniture designers.”

Ole Hjellegjerde, CEO, Furnituredesignmarket.com.

History

On his many business trips as a Purchasing Manager for the Norwegian furniture store chain LIVING (www.living.no), Mr. Ole Hjellegjerde often noticed that his colleagues made fairly quick purchasing decisions, even when they bought quite large quantities of furniture. As long as the Asian factories provided sufficient convenience for the buyer, combined with a good price, they usually landed the orders. But too often, these sofas were copies of existing masterpieces from Western designers. The idea of a new marketplace then emerged: A database consisting only of genuine design sofas, made by furniture designers from all over the world. Hjellegjerde also wanted to give architects and small and medium-sized furniture shops around the world the chance to purchase a small quantity of brand new design sofas, by adding a container logistics service called “container split” to the concept. He then contacted the two designers Brynjulf Krokstrand and Stian Mørland.

Although both of them had earned their respective Master Degrees, Mr. Stian Mørland and Mr. Brynjulf Krokstrand had experienced how hard it can be to make a living as furniture designers. The biggest challenge for most furniture designers around the world always boils down to two different factors: capital and distribution. Brynjulf and Stian founded the company ULIK D/A in 2004, during their final semester at The Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHIO). Their most prestigious assignment as furniture architects has been for the The Norwegian National Opera.

Ole, Brynjulf and Stian decided to become business partners. One former buyer and two furniture designers. But there was still one piece of the puzzle missing: a skillful programmer that could build the database. Brynjulf then contacted Wegard Alm. With a degree in Informatics from The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and Hedmark University College, Mr. Alm had worked with Internet Development at several IT companies since 2000. Wegard decided to join the venture, and the first meeting between the four partners were held in June 2009. The website was functional for designers at the end of January 2010, and introduced to buyers during the Salone Internazionale Del Mobile in April 2010.