Chairish, a direct-to-consumer marketplace for buying and selling high-end interior design products, acquired Dering Hall, an online marketing platform for interior designers and to-the-trade companies, Forbes reports. Chairish said the acquisition now positions the company as the go-to shopping destination for high-end home design.
Chairish sells unique, one-of-a-kind pieces to design lovers and interior designers and helps them sell vintage and gently-used pieces as well. The company claims over 20,000 sellers and more than 2.5 million visitors connected since its launch six years ago.
Last year, Chairish added showroom samples and manufacturers' closeouts to its inventory. Further, the company launched a sister site in 2016 called Decaso to offer products direct-to-consumers from qualified antiques and art dealers.
Dering Hall, unlike Chairish, does not sell products and is mostly used as a discovery service for interior designers. It earns revenue through a three-tiered membership offered to interior designers and to-the-trade companies to see and be seen. The acquisition aims to bridge a gap for Chairish, whose current platform is estimated to be satisfying only 15% to 20% of designers' typical project budgets. Some interior designers told Forbes this could signal change in the interior-design scope in the near future.
"Interior design will split off into the high-end, niche service for wealthy people who could always afford and valued interior designers," Sargent Design Company operator Ann Shriver Sargent predicts. "But then there is a huge swath of designers that will be disrupted. There will be a growing gap between those professional designers who know design and how to run a profitable business and the rest who want to put pretty things together for clients."
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