Kayuku Furniture Showroom in Kerobokan Bali

We opened our new furniture showroom in January 2006, in Kerobokan. We sell the majority of our furniture B2B, and the furniture showroom was another means to attract buyers. In other parts of the world, a furniture showroom would normally mean retail and direct selling to customers, however Bali is different. The majority of people visiting the shop are overseas buyers, and not local customers. Direct sales form only a small part of total furniture sales, and will continue to do so.

The Opening

We probably chose the worst month of the year for opening a store as it is normally a quite time in Bali for overseas buyers, who tend to travel in the Northern Hemisphere summer, and the latter part of the year. We spent the first months wondering what we had done!! Then slowly the number of buyers started to increase, and so did the number of furniture sales.

Our Location

We think we have an ideal location, as we are located on one of Bali's busier shopping streets, Jalan Mertanadi in Kerobokan. JM is a popular and well known street to travel to for regular buyers to Bali.

The only drawback is the dust from traffic, and the shops across the street. Despite being a retail area, the guys across the road still do their production on site, and this causes a lot of dust in the air (the police come every few months, and production ceases for a few days, before starting back up again!). We have to clean the furniture every two hours!!

The only drawback with the location of the road on JM is the dust from traffic, and the shops across the street. Despite being a retail area, the guys across the road still do their production on site, and this causes a lot of dust in the air (the police come every few months, and production ceases for a few days, before starting back up again!). We have to clean the furniture every two hours!!

The Layout

The front walls of the showroom are open at present, and we are caught between the fact that not having walls means the furniture can be more easily seen from the road, verses the fact that no front walls means no air-con and more dirt! Thank Heavens for fans. 

The actual showroom space is not as big as we would like, but we are fortunate that our furniture samples (yes samples) are moving fast, so we are not building up a lot of stock. We are fortunate that our designs are liked, as it seems that no sooner have we designed a new sample, than the sample is sold. This is often because the buyer does not want to wait for us to make a new product, or needs to get the sample into a container leaving soon.

This means we do not have the same stock storing issues as other places in Bali. You see many places in Bali loaded to the roof with poor quality stock that they cannot sell. We get about 2 queries a month from furniture wholesalers wanting us to display their furniture. As we design and make ourselves, we never display someone else's stock or designs, but we do go and have a look at what they offer. Every time we see poorly made furniture, poor quality wood and poor designs. And always in a dark brown color, as this is an easy way to cover up poor quality wood.

Unfortunately, this can give furniture from Bali a bad name. Hence our focus on design and finishing. We see this as one of the key ways to differentiate ourselves.

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