LONG before the novel coronavirus pandemic, sole proprietor of Goodwill Furnishings Durrant Pate understood the concept of pivoting.

After a couple years of operating a wholesale in downtown Kingston, the journalist-turned-businessman, in 2017, decided to make his foray into furniture manufacturing.

“The company is… a spin-off from a previous company, which I operated about four years before. That company was registered as Goodwill Wholesale & Meat mart. That too was also a sole proprietorship. Goodwill Furnishings is the name I have given the business and it is operated from 4 Matthews Lane in downtown Kingston,” he explained to Jamaica Observer.

An employer of three full-time staff and another three on a contractual needs basis, Goodwill Furnishings produces vanities, chairs, beds, cupboards, and chests. Pate pointed out that the company’s competitive advantage is its use of quality products, including authentic hardwood, in the manufacture of furniture pieces that command a premium price.

“All of our furniture are hand-carved with precision and done to order. Blue mahoe and Spanish elm nine-drawer dressers with triple mirrors are the most-sought-after items,” Pate boasted, adding that the competitive price point is also pull factor.

Based on sales, the entrepreneur estimates that dressers contribute between 20 per cent and 25 per cent, followed by chest of drawers with 15 per cent, beds with 10 per cent, and the rest being other furniture items.

But faced with the rising cost of raw materials due to a shortage occasioned by the novel coronavirus pandemic, as well as increased competition from larger players in the furniture distribution market, Pate has considered discontinuing the operation.

“I was contemplating closing the business last year based on the fact that the profit margin is exceedingly slim, compounded by rising costs and the unwillingness to get a better price from merchants [to] whom I supply on a wholesale basis,” he shared with Sunday Finance.

“The business has been pivoted towards the retail market with the marketing focused on the end customers, considering that the contract price being demanded by merchants would see the business selling at cost price and literally without profit or negligible profit,” he continued.

So far, Pate has invested over $1.5 million in the business and continues to provide capital support from his income as a journalist.

Before that, he was recouping the losses of his previous business endeavour while employed to the Institute of Jamaica as director of development and public relations.

Raised in downtown Kingston, Pate said the name of the business came from his “personal connection with downtown and the people there and the goodwill” he has developed there. He added that it was relationships with people in the business district that propelled him to open Goodwill Wholesale & Meatmart at Water Lane, close to the intersection with Matthews Lane, in 2009.

Though he was never disappointed with support he received from the community, it wasn’t enough to keep the business afloat and so the business owner had to make the tough call of shuttering the wholesale. Not one shy about sharing the challenges — and even failures — he has faced as an entrepreneur, Pate admitted that the business failed despite his best efforts and initiatives he conceptualised, due to several reason.

“We didn’t get the discount volume we expected…” he told Sunday Finance.

Moreover, with the business predicated then on the development of the $400-million transportation centre in downtown Kingston at Water Lane, the failure of that Government venture had a significant impact on customer traffic to Goodwill Wholesale and Meatmart. Pate added that delivery to homes in the Corporate Area at a small fee and online marketing initiatives also failed to pump revenue in that venture.

So faced with expensive rent, Pate, in 2011, decided to close the Goodwill Wholesale & Meatmart. Over the two years of operating, he had invested over $1.3 million from his personal savings.

Reflecting on his journey as a business operator, Pate said he has always had the drive to be an entrepreneur.

“I was always entrepreneurial, dabbling in one business enterprise or another. Previously I was involved in fishing and a small business loan outlet in downtown Kingston. This entrepreneurial thrust as well as a desire to pivot from the newsroom to the boardroom motivated me to read for an MBA at the prestigious Mona School of Business and Management (MSBM) at the Mona Campus of The University of the West Indies in April 2006,” he stated.

Pate credits this stage of his life for teaching him “persistence, determnination and fixity of purpose to succeed” as, while engaged in the graduate programme, he had to balance studies with his full-time employment as a journalist.

Another lesson that has stuck with him during his studies at MSBM is the value of customer service and customer loyalty in building goodwill in business.

“Something that I learnt in my MBA course, which I try to opertionalise is that it costs 10 times as much to find a new customer than to retain one. So it’s always best to try to retain your customers than try to win sales. Hence, the reason for Goodwill Furnishing,” the proprietor outlined.

“I don’t want to win sales, I want to win customers. If I win customers, it means that I’m supposed to be aiming for customer loyalty. My business is supposed to build goodwill and build customer loyalty,” he added.

With the regards to the furture of Goodwill Furnishings, Pate said he hopes to improve on networking as he seeks strategic partnerships within which he supplies retailers with products on a contractual basis. Given the capital constraints he now faces, he said he is open to equity financing arrangements.

“So I would not rule out the possibility of me going into an equity relationship with retailers or merchants not just here in Kingston, but throughout the length and breadth of Jamaica,” Pate said.