SDA Feeling funky?
Housewares editor Bryony Andrews spoke to Joe and Sadie Sillett, the husband-and-wife team behind The Funky Appliance Company. Taking popular small domestic appliances and giving them a funky twist, the couple completed their first crowdfunding campaign in March 2017 and in total have raised just under £1 million over four years, which has enabled them to expand its product range, with 467 investors in over 32 countries.
go on gut instinct and choose colours that appeal to us, our customers and suit the products.
Tell me about your offering at The Funky Appliance Company. What sets you apart?
We started with the Funky Iron as we felt that all irons looked the same and that the quality of a lot of branded irons was poor. Our Funky Kettle and Funky Toaster are both 100% unique in their design and have their own bespoke tooling. We felt our Funky Kettle needed to be the most powerful available (3kW), with the largest capacity (1.7L) and we also wanted it to be quiet boil and have best in class parts with a top Strix controller. Our Funky Kettle and Funky Toaster Sets are our best-sellers with all six colours being popular. More customers buy a set with us than they do an individual item, which is fabulous news as there are more and more Funky kitchens across the country!
What are consumers looking for in their SDA in 2022? What will be the top trends?
Consumers seek products which stand out from the crowd, are easy to use and perform as well as they look. We are constantly inspired by all manner of things in all places, past and present. The popularity of copper has been apparent for some time and is still very popular; brass is a colour and texture which is making an appearance in a lot of interior design features. It is important to keep an eye on upcoming trends but we don’t feel we have to be slaves to fashion – we like to
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How do you consider the consumer’s needs when designing your products? Every detail of our products has been designed with consumer’s needs in mind. We are rigorous in our approach to quality and quality assurance - all of our appliances go through full life testing, full safety testing and have all of the required certifications as well as our factories having the requisite certifications and audits to prove that they are world class. We offer all of our customers a two-year guarantee on our appliances. Every effort is made to make sure our business is as environmentally friendly as possible – all of our packaging is from recycled materials and is recyclable.
“Our ethos is to manufacture aesthetically beautiful small domestic appliances which have excellent functionality and are straightforward to use.
Our key aim is for customers to love their products. Anything short of that and we have failed the customer.”
What additional support do you offer retailers alongside your homewares product ranges?
We recently advertised on the London Underground at eight major stations on the large digital screens where we had our 30 second advert run for four weeks. Since the beginning of April 2022, we have also been advertising on Sky Television. The adverts list all major retailer stockists, as we are keen to drive traffic and footfall to the retailers who are supporting our steep growth curve. Over the next 12 months we will be working closely with our distributor RKW to make sure that our products are merchandised in the best possible way by everyone stocking our goods. This will include best in class point of sale material.
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HousewaresLive.net
What are the biggest challenges facing the housewares industry currently? As with many other businesses, the lockdowns over the past couple of years had a major impact. For example, overnight hardly anyone needed to iron work clothes and although life is getting back to normal, there is still a reluctance to go back to the old routines. With day- to-day bills increasing, consumers are understandably more cautious as to the choices they make when spending money. A lot of brands have to compete for a smaller amount of disposable income and consumers are looking to be excited by a product and assured of its quality before committing to making a purchase. The Funky Appliance Company offers affordable, desirable and quality appliances which we feel stand out in the marketplace and our customers love them.
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twitter.com/Housewaresnews May 2022
What can the housewares industry expect from The Funky Appliance Company for 2022 and beyond? In Q4 2022 we will be launching our housewares range, which includes a FUNKY Bread Bin, FUNKY Kitchen Roll Holder, FUNKY Mug Tree and three FUNKY Storage Canisters which will be available in the six colours to match our kettles and toasters. In 2023 we are looking forward to launching a FUNKY Knife Set and a FUNKY Cookware Range, plus our next two new appliances: the FUNKY Air Fryer and the FUNKY Microwave.
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