What do designers really want from a trade program?

weekly feature | Feb 12, 2025 | By Fred Nicolaus and Aidan Taylor‍

Designers, hear us out. In the chaos phase of a project—when chandeliers are arriving as boxes full of shattered glass, workrooms are faxing (yes, faxing) pictures of sofas with the fabric applied upside down, your phone calls go unreturned, the vendor’s website was last updated in 2017, and online prices swing wildly from one minute to the next—it may feel like no one in the world even wants to do business with interior designers. The opposite is true.

Look at it from the perspective of a home goods brand surveying an increasingly complicated marketplace. Independent brick-and-mortar retailers are fading away at an alarming rate, while e-commerce remains unpredictable. Amid all of that, designers have quietly emerged as the one customer base that continues to grow steadily, offering access to affluent customers who always seem to spend on their homes—up market or down. In this day and age, who wouldn’t launch a trade program?

However, just because a brand wants to work with designers doesn’t mean the feeling will be mutual. For brands, every trade program is a series of compromises between conflicting impulses: To give designers good pricing, but maintain strong margins. To offer great service, but not go broke on staffing. To give designers exclusivity, but not lose out on opportunities elsewhere in the marketplace. Every company will arrive at a different place on each of those issues—and the choices they make will determine their success (or failure) with the trade.

To take a pulse on what matters in a trade program today, Business of Home spoke to more than a dozen designers across the country, at all levels of experience. They shared what makes a difference to their business, what perks they could do without, their red flags (and green flags) when vetting partners, and everything in between.

SERVICE

‍Designers have a surprisingly varied outlook on what counts as good service (there’s one exception—more on that in a second). For some, the expectation is a dedicated rep who will return emails promptly. For others, the gold standard is a relationship that goes even deeper, with the rep helping in the margins on projects and becoming a kind of extension of the firm itself.

“A lot of the time you’ll meet different trade sales reps, and they’re so excited to get you on board, and then once you’re on board, they kind of disappear. I remember I worked with a sales rep at Visual Comfort, and she was absolutely amazing, and it felt more of like a partnership, instead of me just being another number [on her client list],” says Brittany Cooper of Cary, North Carolina, firm Rathell Designs. “[It’s all about having] a contact person, someone that I can email easily. They know our vision. They’ve studied our brand. They want to support us in our projects.”

Not having a dedicated rep isn’t a deal-breaker. In fact, some designers don’t have the time or energy to maintain direct relationships with the multitude of brands they shop from. Many candidly preferred a great website to a decent rep (a website will work at 11 p.m. on a Sunday; few reps will).

Still, most designers want at least the option of getting a human on the phone in case of emergency. “I think a lot of companies are pushing everything online, which is great when you need to get a quick price check or [product] details, but sometimes, at the end of the day, I need to have a person I can call and talk to,” says Laura Tribbett of Chicago-based firm Outline Interiors.

TURNOFFS AND NEEDLESS PERKS

‍Sales and promotions rub some designers the wrong way. It’s understandable that brands will want to draw attention to specific products at specific times, but this kind of sales tactic can come off to some as slightly tacky or tone-deaf, treating designers like consumers as opposed to business partners. “Sometimes we’ll get an email that’s like, ‘If you order by X date, you get an extra 10 percent off,’” says Austin-based designer Annie Downing. “We don’t really operate that way.”

Likewise, the pressure to meet minimums (for example, constant email reminders about how close or far away a firm may be) can come across more as a pressure tactic than a helpful reminder. Same goes for contracts with harsh terms. “Our biggest red flag is when a trade program has an ‘or else,’ such as excessive fees for sample returns on tight deadlines,” says New York architect and designer Lara Apelian.

For many designers, another turnoff is the glut of marketing materials that brands throw their way. That can range from unwanted samples to tote bags to War and Peace–length catalogs. “We just have too much stuff in our office,” says Tribbett. “We don’t need the catalogs or lookbooks. We’re just going to go online for that—a lot of people are sending these big, beautiful books, but they honestly just take up space and rarely get referenced.”

Finally, it’s rare to encounter a designer who is particularly excited about the custom technology that brands develop. “We don’t find features like space planning tools, mood board creation or inspiration collages useful, given that as a design firm we already have access to those resources in-house,” says Chicago designer Brynn Olson. “As for mobile or tablet applications, we typically prefer to place orders directly through our reps or on a desktop rather than using an app.”

ABOVE AND BEYOND

‍Good product, a good margin and great service will do it for most designers. But some add-on perks are sincerely appreciated. Cash-back is an obvious nice-to-have. “In addition to trade pricing, we see some brands offering actual monetary rewards based on volume of sales, in the form of gift cards,” says Christine Carney, Blackberry Farm’s director of design. “This is so useful for design firms.”

For the ultimate perk, there’s a sponsored trip. “[A brand I work with] has this program where if you spend X number of dollars per year, you’re eligible to come up to New York to meet the corporate team and see some of their archives and things like that,” says Tribbett. “Some of the more legacy brands and vendors are starting to get creative about how they incentivize their more engaged clients, which is really fun. No one needs another tote bag.”

Caroline Bourque contributed additional reporting