Taiwan Chair Makers Strive to Keep a Competitive Seat

One maker commissions an Italian designer to

Chairs have long been a staple item of furniture makers since they are indispensable and can be paired with other furniture items. Generally speaking, chairs include sofas, armchairs, office chairs, stack chairs, recliners, stools, rockers, folding chairs, and lounge chairs. Usually chairs are sold with tables or desks, but they also have an independent presence as well, depending on function and design.

Some Taiwanese chair makers focus on a specific type of chair, such as office chairs, lounge chair, rocking chairs, or stack chairs. Some produce a variety of chairs, and others also supply other furniture items. The materials they use are mainly metal, plastic, melamine, natural wood, leather, and cloth, which are mostly provided by local suppliers.

The sharp price hike of basic metals and oil in recent years has boosted the prices of metal tubing and plastics that are major materials used by chair producers in Taiwan. This, and rising competition from home and abroad, has increased pressure on margins of the industry.

Ergonomic Chairs

Established in 1999 in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, United Prosperous Enterprise Co., Ltd. supplies a wide range of chairs, including occasional chairs, office chairs, stacking chairs and barstools.

The company is a family-run business that insists on staying in Taiwan. Charles and Sandy Wu, brother and sister, jointly run the company, with the former handling manufacturing and the latter marketing. "Before setting up United Prosperous, my brother worked at a chair maker for more than five years to gain experience in design, manufacture and marketing," Sandy says. "Such experience gave Charles confidence to go into business for himself-setting up United Prosperous about 10 years ago. Being traditional, I felt obliged to help him and therefore joined in the operation of the company."

A relatively small-sized company with around 15 employees, United Prosperous focuses on designing and developing new chair types. "We work with several satellite plants in Taiwan so we don't need much in-house production capacity or staff," Sandy explains. "But to ensure high quality, we carefully choose raw materials and strictly inspect products."

"Workers in Taiwan are skilled, devoted and experienced, which is why we can make high-quality products and have resisted moving to China," she adds. To meet market trends, the company has in recent years concentrated on developing ergonomic, eco-friendly chairs, and developed a series of ergonomic mesh office chairs as well as stylish occasional chairs that can also go with dining sets.

An export-oriented company, United Prosperous ships all of its products overseas. Japan has been its major export outlet, accounting for 60% of total shipment; while the remaining 40% are shipped to Europe, South Africa and Hong Kong.

Usually the company turns out an average of 2,000 chairs per month, but this number dropped by 60% in 2009 due to the global crash. "The global meltdown in the second half of 2008 slashed our output last year due to plummeting orders," Sandy points out. "Nevertheless, the economy has gradually recovered since the beginning of this year and our company will see a better business climate for the second half of the year."

Sitting Healthy

With a history of near 20 years, Open All the Way International Co., Ltd. (OAWI) is a manufacturer of health-oriented equipment and products. In the beginning years, the company generated inversion excise tables on an OEM basis for a well-known health equipment company in the United States and five years later it started to develop health-oriented chairs.

"Chou Chien-hsin is the founder of OAWI and an active inventor who likes to create things," says Tom Huang, sales manager of the company. "In 1995 he developed a space-saving and simple-designed chair available with different seating postures. The chair hit the market soon after it was unveiled and once became a hot-selling item on the island. It was also exported to the United States and Australia."

The success of the chair encouraged Chou to begin manufacturing furniture items, mainly chairs as well as health equipment. About six years ago, Chou again created a simple and stylish health-oriented massage chair with a footrest stool. "Chou spent two to three years developing the chair," Huang explains. "The chair features an inventive mechanism at the back that can precisely detect the body points and help relieve the stress of the sitter through vibration on the back points. The seat is also installed with an electric seat device for vibration massage."

According to Huang, no transformer is needed for the electric device of the chair when it is used in different countries because the device fits a wide electricity range of 100-240 voltages and can automatically shift to handle the voltages of different areas. Moreover, the device consumes only 26 watts of electricity per hour, making it the best energy saver among electric massage chairs made in Taiwan.

Huang emphasizes that OAWI massage chair looks more elegant than those turned out by other manufacturers because they are made with wood rather than the metal mostly applied by the latter. The OAWI massage chair also can rotate 360-degrees, a first for massage chairs, the company claims. The accompanying footrest stool allows the sitter to rest his/her feet. Users can also lie on the stool to help stretch and relax muscles.

"OAWI contracted with a German company to sell the chair in the European market after it was unveiled in 2004. The contract expired early this year. So, the company has recently decided to take back the marketing right and plans to sell the chair globally by itself. The chair has been approved with major international standards such as CE, FC, GS and UL; and is available in black and white," Huang adds.

Selling on Quality

Welltrust Industries Co., located in southern Taiwan, is a leading furniture manufacturer and exporter, providing mainly chairs. Thanks to years of efforts to upgrade manufacturing technologies, the company has earned a good reputation for the quality of its products among its global buyers.

"I became involved in the furniture industry in 1993 as a trader," recalls Charly Lin, Welltrust's managing director. "Ad I didn't have my own factory until eight years ago. Only a decade ago did I become self-employed with my own plant and only five or six workers initially. Through sustained effort, the company has expanded rapidly and now has a workforce of 70 to 80 people."

"To be sensitive to global trends, I often visit leading international furniture shows to look for world-class designers for partnerships to create different styles for various markets," Lin notes. "We're now commissioning an Italian designer to design chairs to suit the tastes of consumers in the European market. We sign contracts with the designer on a case-by-case basis, and we're having him create five or six chairs for us this year. In the future, we may cooperate with Japanese or American designers to create furniture products for those markets."

"Quality" is the corporate lifeblood and a motto for every employee at the company. To uphold the highest quality standards, Welltrust has invested heavily in cutting-edge design software and high-precision inspection equipment, with its own quality-control team inspecting products at every stage of manufacturing, from procurement of raw materials to finished products, packaging and shipment. Besides, being ISO 9001 certified, the maker has patented most of its products in the United States, Europe, China and Taiwan.

The United States is the company's major export outlet, but shipments to that market tumbled about 30% due to the global meltdown last year. "The current recovery has brought back orders from our American clients," Lin says. "We foresee a better business climate this year and will keep rolling out new models of chairs in the second half of the year."

Asian sourcing agent Ocean Avenue Co., Ltd., based in Tainan, southern Taiwan, is a professional seating manufacturer, mainly turning out office chairs. "We provide both chairs and chair parts," says Judy Chen, the company's sales manager. "We have long cooperated with local counterparts to turn out products, all of which are exported."

With more than 10 years of production and design experience, Ocean Avenue advises and assists customers to improve production quality beyond original demand. Today the company's major export outlet is the United States, which takes a lion's share of 60% of its shipments. Europe, Australia and Canada together make up of the remaining 40%.

"Since we sell our products globally, we need fluent English-speaking staff, so we employ a couple of English-speaking foreigners to help us explore overseas markets," Chen reveals. "With the assistance of foreign staff, we can efficiently and rapidly solve problems with our clients abroad."

The company believes that finding new customers and lowering manufacturing cost are imperative to its success. It also has a strong R&D team to develop top-quality chairs and components to satisfy existing clients while attracting new customers.

To stay competitive, Ocean Avenue has spared no efforts to upgrade its manufacturing facilities and R&D ability. "To further explore the global market, we roll out new products periodically and display our latest products at leading international furniture shows around the world," Chen adds.

Over the years, the company has built a good reputation in the industry and has garnered praise and trust among its clients. It is committed to building relations with successful business partners and reinforcing its global strength.