Contractor VS Interior Designers

Lets talk about HDB & Condo 'interior designers'

Do you really need an ID to design your home? Or do you pretty much know what you want for your home? 

I can assure you that for many of us typical Singaporeans, we already knew what we want for our homes. We don't need an ID to design our house or to propose the different mood, theme, colour contrasts or to hold our hand and to guide us through any materials selection or even to buy all the fittings. 

Unless you are really well to do with super deep pockets or born with a rich parents - yes please go ahead with the ID route

But for most of us, average Singaporean, your house renovations will likely be one of the largest purchase in your life. So would you rather work with an 'ID salesman' whose ultimate goal is to squeeze as much money from you? Because their income is solely depending on it? Or would you rather get the best value for your money? 

I'm not denying that being profitable is necessary to operate and sustain any business, however if you only knew how easy it is to set up and manage an ID firm, you'll be shocked. 

So, how does the 'ID' industry works?

I'm not saying that all interior designers are structured and operates this manner, but almost 90% of them are operating using this business model.

So basically, the Boss registers a business entity, leases an office space or showroom, renovate the office kao kao macam hotel and allocate a monthly budget for his advertising, then he sits back and chill. Like literally.

Then they start going around hiring as many salesperson as possible. I've heard some firms even has more than a 100 salesman. These salesman who have now somehow earned the tittle as interior designer has to meet up with new customers, do up their quotation, manage the job sites, coordinate and handle the individual sub contractor claims, handle the owners complain, finish up the project then repeat again.

The best part for the Boss, all these salesperson are hired with no base salary, no basic insurance, no annual leave, no hospitalization leave or even CPF contribution. They are all like freelancers or independent contractors so to say. All of them are only paid purely via commission and it ranges between 30% to 50% of the project profit.

Let me breakdown the figures for you ;)

Assuming a home renovation costs around $50,000

These salesman 'aka' IDs would get individual contractors like us to quote for the jobs, and they 'mark up' from the amount we quoted them.

Lets based on the assumption that they mark up a minimum 30% - that would worked out to $15,000 of profit after paying us.

And if their commission structure is based 60 : 40, the company would pocket $9000 and salesman earned $6000

Just take a moment to let that sink in. Imagine you paying them $50,000 of renovation but the works you're getting are only worth at most $35,000 - the balance is their 'profit' for coordinating and managing your projects

Now imagine if that company has 10 salesman and each of them just managed to close 1 x 50k project monthly, that would easily earned the company a whopping profit of $90,000 monthly

Lets take a look what is the company's monthly expenses? We presumed a 5k office rental with a 3k full-time admin and a 10k marketing budget monthly. With just that they would easily gross a monthly net earnings of at least $70,000 after deducting all their expenses and salesman commission.

So now you know why ID's have been popping up everywhere like mushrooms for the last few years.  

Disclaimer

I'm not trying to condemn all these interior designer.

What gets to me is that these companies are pretending to be award winning design company, giving you this and that but in reality they are just another salesman trying to squeeze as much money from you 

Yes, real interior designers still exists and yes we still do need them but there are not for the mass market

We need interior designers to help us design for office layouts, restaurants, retail shops, landed houses, especially those with deep pockets and have the budget. They are good at what they do, but trust me, we don't need them for our home. 

Conclusion 

YOU don't need an ID to design the house for you unless you have deep pockets or rich parents. Don't waste your hard earn money ;)

Come talk to us, you'll be glad you did