The Australian interior design market is one of the latest industry sectors to face disruption, with the launch of a new online platform called Milray Park.
Founder and CEO Ms Sally Bevan decided to create the online platform as a result of her own experience when she struggled to decorate and furnish her rented apartment on a tight budget.
“Australian’s have a particularly high level of interest in home decorating and design. However, with the amount of information available now from online sources, it can be overwhelming for people to bring their ideas to life in a cohesive and affordable way,” said Bevan.
“Milray Park gives consumers the opportunity to access professional design advice, regardless of their budget, and achieve the best results for their home, whether it is designing a whole new look or choosing new pieces of furniture to complement their existing set-up,” she said.
Milray Park is a user-friendly visual platform, where customers simply submit a short brief and photos of the room or space they want to design. This brief is pushed to the interior designers registered on the site, who in turn send back a complete interior design plan. The designer provides a first look, which is then refined through a feedback process. This then leads to a final design package that includes a design board, floor plan, shopping list and the designer’s debrief. Customers continue to have access to their designer for two weeks following the project completion, and the in-house design team is available for an additional month free-of-charge.
Purpose-built in close consultation with a group of professional interior designers, the platform provides the opportunity for them to grow their client-base, work remotely and diversify their offerings. Since going live more than 20 designers have been onboarded and more have registered interest.
“The traditional interior design services industry is dominated by small businesses and freelancers and has a high proportion of part-time workers. Not having to worry about things like marketing, establishing an online presence, project management, payment processing and invoicing services, which is all taken care of by Milray Park, has been hugely appealing to our designers who are able to get more customers and work more flexibly,” Bevan said.
Next year, Milray Park will expand its services to include landscape and garden, event styling, commercial office, hospitality, retail design and property staging. It will also look to increase the number of custom design tools available to users. The platform aims to make interior design services affordable, bringing a service to consumers that was traditionally used by those unconstrained by time or budget, with flat-fee packages starting at $299 for a complete interior design service.
Inside Small Business