furnishings industry questions

John and all,
I have developed a unique "high-design" water fountain that retailers told
me was a great idea that their customers would buy. Two questions:

1. Samples: I now have samples. Under the Spiers model, I take the
samples to the same retailers and others to get orders sufficient to fill
supplier minimums. However, my fountains are difficult to transport due to
size and location of the retailers. Only a few retailers are local. This
must be a problem common in the furnishings industry. Consider armoires.
To those of you with furnishings (or other large item) experience, how do
you deal with it? I've considered making a small scale model. However this
requires duplicate tooling (molds) and the pumps are unavailable to
replicate the water flow. The product does show best live vs. photographed.

2. Design commission: Compensation to the designer may change. Does
anyone know the common range of commissions for "lesser known" furniture
designers? I've been unable to sleuth it out in the trade journals.

Thanks much. By the way, I've been enjoying the saga of the basic cell
phone search.

Mary Kay

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