This furniture company repurposes salvaged urban trees into works of art
Business partners and husband and wife, Jeffrey Yang Pik Han and Joey Woo Yee San saw the potential in processing salvaged urban trees into luxurious furniture after a visit to a sawmill, where misshapen wood slabs were seen lying around - none of which had any takers due to the unusual cuts and measurements.
Jeffrey began collecting them purely for artistic value but he grew a gradual interest in salvaging urban trees and repurposing them into furniture. Eventually, Art of Tree was born.
“If we were to not intervene, these trees will just be burnt, which releases excess carbon dioxide into the air.
“By repurposing them, we are giving these trees a second chance to be useful, by prolonging their lifespan,” he said.
The company's products were well-received by the public. According to Jeffrey, this is because people wanted something more than furniture made from artificial based material with mainstream designs.
Timber furniture, then, was a breath of fresh air. The younger generation especially, were interested in this natural touch that Art of Tree products offer, a far cry from the usual rustic, Balinese-style wooden furniture.
This was back in 2013, when businesses did not have to worry about unprecedented lockdowns and venturing into e-commerce as a way to circumnavigate a pandemic.
But Joey saw how the business could leverage on social media, so she quickly equipped herself with social media marketing skills.
As it is a business that serves customers’ wants and not needs, this required a niche clientele base. This made it hard for the husband-and-wife duo to take the easy way out of hiring a marketeer or an events company to spread the word.
They decided that the best way to establish the brand was to do it themselves.
Their strategies proved to work as Art Of Tree went from having a few hundred followers to 30,000 in just the space of a few months, all of which was organic growth.
This was encouraging for the couple, who went on to experiment with Facebook lives, where orders came pouring in on the spot.
Influencer marketing was also adopted as a marketing strategy, but this has changed in recent years. Now, the company has become more selective with its marketing approach.
“Social media is getting competitive; it’s not easy to go viral as it was back then when we first marketed our products online. Our aim now is to target a group that is really relevant to our products,” he added.
Jeffrey said that due to the amount of time, effort, labour, and raw materials it takes just to repurpose one table and turn it into a work of art, the furniture such as the dining tables do come with a hefty price tag.
“As our name suggests, the word art precedes the word tree. In that sense, the price is also determined by the artistic value and the beauty of the product itself.
“Certain furniture that have features not commonly seen in other pieces we offer will be priced higher than the rest,” he pointed out.
Two components affect the pricing of these tables, one of which is the size. The larger the piece, the higher the price tag. This is due to the higher cost of processing the raw materials.
The other component is how unique the piece is. “They are special, it is not the kind of product you can create in bulk, every single piece takes time to build and is unique.
The 33,000 sq ft showroom houses a variety of creative selections for interested customers. There, visitors will be greeted by "imperfect" tables of all shapes and sizes that are paired with glass and resin, which are used to fill up the natural cavities and decay found in the wood.
Customers can also opt for customised features, which will cost extra time and money to do once an order is placed.
Jeffrey shared that the brand was growing at a steady pace, at least until the pandemic hit. The first lockdown back in March 2020 had Jeffrey and Joey race against time to create a website of their own to start diving into the e-commerce world.
Customers making an expensive purchase undoubtedly want to touch, see, and feel the products before making a commitment, but Jeffrey told us that due to Art of Tree having a solid clientele base, this was not a problem.
“People who have bought from us before gave us good reviews. This helps build trust in potential customers and only resulted in better sales,” shared Jeffrey, who was pleasantly surprised by how business continued as usual despite movement restrictions.
Since its inception, Art of Tree has garnered multiple awards for their noble purpose, notably from Malaysia Excellence Business Awards in 2018, Star Outstanding Business Awards, Lang International Corporate Titan Awards in 2018, The Best Eco-Responsible Wooden Furniture Maker Award in 2018, SME 100 Awards in 2017, Home Design and Interior Exhibition’s Good Design Award 2018 as well as Innovative Product Award in 2017, and lastly, The 100 Most Influential Young Entrepreneurs Award in 2017.
Now, they are recognised as one of the few in the country to leave as little carbon footprint as they possibly can.
Taking nature and raw materials for granted is human nature. The culture of treating natural, raw materials as an unlimited source when they are not, needs to be stopped, he said.
Jeffrey believes that the best way to go is to be mindful of the limited resources we have at hand, “By constantly inculcating the idea of repurposing, hopefully it changes this. Let’s not treat products as always there, always available.
In the near future, the co-founders expressed their desire to expand their brand presence in a more strategic location, in the heart of Kuala Lumpur to be exact.
This, they said, would help build their clientele base as the capital city is where their target market would be.
When asked what advice Jeffrey had for budding entrepreneurs, he said that the journey of entrepreneurship is not for the faint hearted.
“This is why passion matters the most. It is easy to give up when you don’t have passion for what you do, so it is important to never doubt yourself,” he said.
Check out the products offered by Art of Tree at their website.
