Blue Marble
Designs Value Stream
Blue Marble Designs is about value for its customers and value for the consumer. We promise a never ending stream of value, offering the highest quality products at affordable prices. Anyone can make a good quality product for a high price, or a poor quality product for a low price. Often, making a product $1 cheaper makes it $5 uglier! Below is the stream of values which our company brings to its customers:
Value #1
Having years of experience in consumer products (particularly in wood garden products), we know that garden products are highly seasonal, with the vast majority of retail sales taking place in early to mid Spring. Our mission is to provide the right product to our customers at exactly the right time—at the onset of the selling season. In doing so, we avoid the burden of maintaining a full-time warehouse, eliminating as much as 10% of the operating costs incurred by a conventional business structure. Our low overhead allows us to be the low cost supplier.
Value #2
Unlike much of our competition, we do not simply scour the factory showrooms throughout the world to find the cheapest product in order to deliver the lowest price to our customers. Remember, making a product $1 cheaper all too often makes it $5 uglier. Instead, we design new and innovative products with the highest quality standards and then work with our factories to lower their costs (without sacrificing quality or the characteristics which make our products unique) in order to meet very competitive retail price points. We are not simply traders—our innovations and product designs are the value we provide.
Value #3
Having very strong, long-term relationships with highly qualified factories throughout the world, we offer the largest wood product offering in the market, allowing our customers a product selection unique to their individual needs and geographic regions. Our factories aren’t simply showrooms (places to find low-cost products)—they are an extension of our business and are carefully screened to meet our high quality standards. Our vast product offering allows our customers to avoid competing on price alone, while our long-term relationships with our factories assures our customers the lowest price on quality products so that they can compete on price alone if they choose to do so.
Value #4
Low prices are the cornerstone of the Blue Marble Designs vision and our business ideal—but not at any price. We believe that taking responsibility for people and the environment is a prerequisite for doing good business.
Value #5
Our factories use wood only from responsibly managed forests—absolutely no old growth timber. All of our factories are FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) members.
Value #6
Our products must be manufactured under acceptable working conditions by suppliers who take responsibility for the environment and their employees. The best way to influence and contribute to positive development is to maintain close, long-term relationships with our suppliers. By supporting suppliers with innovative ideas and know-how, we can motivate them to take more responsibility for people and the environment.
Value #7
Kermit was wrong—it IS easy being green. Innovative thinking is responsible for our EDIA (Easy Does It Assembly) line of products. These products, like most high quality home and office furnishings, are shipped in flat boxes, requiring fewer “touches” and transports, significantly reducing the consumption of fossil fuels and toxic emissions. We don’t design the flat packs to sell more but to save more. The result is a win-win situation for you (our customers), your customer (the consumer), and the environment. Our packaging of choice, brown cardboard, is one of our best friends; it is often made of recycled material and it recycles again and again, unlike foams and plastics which never leave the planet. We even have installed automatic lighting in our offices with motion sensors to turn out the lights when we are even temporarily out of the office.
Value #8
We have a 2012 initiative to introduce new products which use “shorts”—leftover pieces of quality wood which would otherwise be ground into sawdust or chipboard.
Value #9
We really want to help your customer go green—in the literal sense. Our large Magnum EDIA planters are 40”, 48”, and 60” in length, encouraging container vegetable gardening to ensure healthy, fresh vegetables throughout the gardening season. These planters are truly easy to assemble—assembly instructions are included with the product and they are available on our website along with video assembly instructions. In addition, our unique design results in planters much more ruggedly constructed than those available from other suppliers.
Value #10
To further whet the appetite of the “dirt under the fingernails” crowd, in 2012 we will introduce a new innovation—a convertible irrigated raised planter bed for the more serious vegetable gardener who still doesn’t have a large plot of space for a conventional garden. Using French intensive gardening techniques, a 4 x 12 garden space can produce enough to supply fresh vegetables for a family throughout the spring and summer. We will support this intensive gardening practice with vegetable planting and gardening tips on our consumer website.
Value #11
We will continue to expand our value stream by developing more innovative and exciting gardening products as well as expanding our product selection to include solar landscape lighting, unique patio furniture, and other consumer items. We are well connected with outstanding factory resources, we have years of experience in understanding the cost structure of a business, and we know that we will succeed only by responding to our customers’ needs in a responsible way—we are listening.
