KUCHING: Home & Living Resources Sdn Bhd (Home & Living) at tHe Spring Shopping Mall has taken home furnishing to a new level, offering high quality and reliable products ranging from kitchen necessities, utensils, crockery and even souvenirs.
“We are here to open the eyes and minds of the local consumers on the availability of quality home furnishings. Our offerings give our customers the chance to feel, touch and comment on the products,” said its director Simon Wong when interviewed by The Borneo Post recently.
For Wong, it was the passion for quality and reliable home furnishings that motivated him and his wife to start the business.
“Our backgrounds as ex-hoteliers actually played a role. Previously, we were involved in dealing and purchasing all the home furnishings that were required by the hotels that we worked in. That exposed us to many high quality products which were all imported from overseas and that became a passion for both of us to start this business.
“Another aspect that we looked into before we decided to start this business was the growing demand for high quality and reliable home furnishings in the local market as the standard of living here is growing,” he explained.
For all that, Wong felt that there was a need for this kind of outlet to be established in the market and there was a reason why that tHe Spring was chosen to be the venue of the outlet.
“It is undeniable that tHe Spring has revolutionised the shopping culture in Kuching with the introduction of the new shopping concept to the locals and the type of customers that tHe Spring is catering to fits our requirements so that was why we decided to have our outlet here at tHe Spring.
“With the total floor area of over 8,000 square feet, the outlet is the biggest individual store in Kuching divided into three zones, namely the La Galleria, Gastronome and Decorum,” highlighted Wong.
“We only sell readily made home furnishings at our outlet. For those who require special designs for their kitchens or kitchen appliances, we are working with designers to design and build kitchens or other furnishings such as cookware and small kitchen appliances,” Wong said.
He said for the past few months, the outlet had been getting very positive response from customers, which were mostly young professionals with family and the customers felt that they need this kind of outlet.
When asked on the local demand for home furnishing products, Wong said, “The demand for the products in the Gastronome zone has been very encouraging because customers want to purchase more kitchen appliances for them to cook at home.
“So they spend money to make kitchens and buy kitchen utensils.”
He added that after many months of experience, the demand for gifts had also picked up as it was not easy to get suitable gifts in the market. They also included wrapping service to customers.
When asked if there was any collaborations between Home & Living with other contractors, Wong said that there was no direct collaboration but some housing developers bought home furnishings from his store to design their show houses.
On Home & Living’s further expansions, he said there was no necessity for another outlet as big as the current outlet in Kuching within three years as he felt that the market had reached equilibrium.
“We will only consider opening another outlet after five years in Sabah,” he added.
“Customers patronising our outlet can be assured that they will receive quality services from our staff who are specially trained. We believe that besides selling quality and reliable products, our staff need to be properly trained on their product knowledge and professionalism so that our customers will not be misled,” he concluded.