Droog Design has lately been building its distribution network in new overseas markets. The demands of selling vary by country, and the economic crisis has also changed the picture. Distributors from Tokio, Dubai and Shanghai share their experiences in this debate. The distributors discussed the challenges and opportunities of selling Dutch design abroad with company co-founder Renny Ramakers.

Topics were among others:

• What is their opinion about design from the Netherlands, Europe and in particular Droog?
• What are their thoughts about ‘artdesign’ and ‘limited editions’?
• Who are the customers?
• How do the markets differ from each other?
• What is their conception on how the market will develop over the next few years?

The distributors differed on the likely impact of the economic crisis. Lyndon Neri of Shanghai’s Design Republic store and Dionisis Sotovikis of Workshop in Athens said they had seen little belt-tightening among customers. But Rami Farook of Dubai’s Traffic gallery and Kou Hattori of the Droog store in Tokyo were more pessimistic.

In New York, some people are spending as much as before, said Ramakers, and the company is going ahead with plans for a new store. In any case, she said, Droog will not lower prices in an effort to survive the crisis. Even in China, production costs continue to rise, and lowering prices would harm quality and labour conditions, Ramakers said.

A popular approach seems to be to teach potential customers why they need your goods. Hattori said he had to explain Droog’s sense of humour and demands on the customer’s imagination to his Japanese clientele. Neri said he sought to use Droog’s objects to provoke emotion and raise awareness among the Chinese.

Author Marco Bevolo led the discussion.

Via Premsela and Object Rotterdam