Tibet temptation for furniture firm
02/05/2008
A Texas-based leather sofa company has decided against calling its first products 'Tibet'.
The Leather Sofa Company wanted to pay tribute to the “worldwide social activism” that the recent protests there sparked in the build-up to the Beijing Olympics this summer.
However, it has changed its plan and the first sofas to become available to its customers will be called 'Dallas' instead after the city where the company has its headquarters.
In a statement, it said it wanted to recognise that the people in the organisation most proficient in their jobs were employees manufacturing the sofas in a factory at Jiangyan City near Shanghai.
The new company enters the leather furnitute market at a difficult time, as economic pressures cause families to postpone big-ticket one-off purchases. Nevertheless, it believes its business model will work.
It claims to offer “$7,000 full top grain leather sofa sets” for $2,250. Its pricing structure is factory costs plus 35% and shipping. It will also use “viral marketing”, hoping to build up its customer-base principally by word of mouth. The first step towards achieving this is to insist that customers may approach it to buy a new sofa by appointment only.
In recognition of its Tibet idea, it has pledged to send one copy of a book by the country's spiritual leader, the Dali Lama, to a public official in the city of Dallas for every sofa it sells before US Independence Day, July 4.
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