How Modern Komfort’s Small But Focused Start Is Paying Off
FREDERICTON — Take a walk along Main Street in Fredericton North and Modern Komfort sticks out among the new street side businesses which have opened over the past year.
Modern Komfort specializes in modern and contemporary furniture, lighting and décor like rugs, art and other standout pieces and while the store is new, they’ve been around awhile.
“We were a year into the pandemic when we took this lease on,” says co-owner and co-founder, Helen Champion from behind her desk. “I had my eye on this space for a long time. I really liked that it was right on Main.”
She points to the lofty ceilings and abundance of natural light that brings a warmth to the decorating space.
“It can be such a nice walkable shopping area, and it seems like we’re heading in that direction because new businesses keep popping up constantly,” she adds.
Modern Komfort is also one of those. Later this week it will open doors again, this time two provinces away, with a new second location in Ottawa where Champion’s business partner, Anna Rubaj resides.
Embracing an online marketplace
Their appreciation of style and design led both Champion and Rubaj to the business full time, and while having two stores in their own cities was the idea from the start, even Champion can’t believe how much the business has grown over the past nine years.
Rubaj started selling a lighting line, with Champion busy looking for sustainable Canadian made sofas. It wasn’t long before both where helping others search an online gallery of products after incorporating the business together.
“We started to pick up more lines and we really needed a space to be able to showcase fabrics and things like that,” recalls Champion. “We wanted a little space where people could come, see, and meet us, just a small presence.”
The pair began sharing a space with New View Designs, a local designer and builder on St. Mary’s Street, and working out of its space on Saturdays.
A later move to a small spot next door only offered staging space for one living room and bedroom area.
“We didn’t even have room for a proper desk and counter,” recalled Champion.
While the confines were cozy, Champion says the smaller space became the launching area for the business to grow.
“It was picking up during that time, we started an Instagram page and we had a few influencers reach out to us,” admitting they didn’t really know much about influencing at the time, though Champion points to the collaborations as key to Modern Komfort gaining a larger following.
“A lot more people were shopping online, so when the pandemic hit, and all stores closed, we were already set up online. We had zero adjustment to do except to ask our staff to work from home. But our volume grew significantly.”
Even before the pandemic, the pace of business directed Modern Komfort to hire more staff to help grow its online store, inevitably leading toward needing more physical space.
“We wanted people to be driving by and seeing our sign and looking in the window, and a lot of new customers have found us since we’ve come here.”
The logistics learning curve
Since moving in last October, Champion says Modern Komfort’s growth has taken off while the company increased its marketing.
“It feels like over the last year we’ve been setting up a company, even though we’ve been in business nine years, because we were so small and we grew to having 12 people on a team, there’s a lot more factors that come into play.”
“We went through a lot of growth two years ago. We are at that point now where we’re not looking at any major expansion,” noted Champion, adding the growth plan was always to have two locations only, one in New Brunswick and one in Ottawa.
“We’ve done what we wanted to do, and now we want to refine things and make sure we’re giving our best customer service and our logistical and distribution channels are the best they can be.”
For Champion, logistics can be the most complicated factor in having a business that sells large furniture.
“We found there was no one out there to help with that, so we had to learn all that ourselves. There’s few people to lean on for logistics, but that was a really big learning curve.”
Champion says having amazing partners across Canada has helped meet demand while her customers are understanding of the stretch on supply chains.
“Sometimes I see improvements, but then sometimes I feel like it’s not any better and it might be getting worse — It shifts,” says Champion, citing the countless warehouses currently overwhelmed and short staffed.
Getting something like a large piece of furniture across the border is taking an extra two-to-four weeks longer than it used to, even if the item is in stock, with Champion adding a lot of businesses have been short staffed for so long that backlogs are commonplace even though people are back to work, a result of warehouses and manufacturers working at half capacity for two years.
New opening this weekend
Despite an overwhelming portion of its business coming from online customers, Modern Komfort’s 3,000 square foot Fredericton show space was necessary.
Both Champion and Rubaj signed a lease last summer for the Ottawa space, which has been busy in development for a June 4 kick-off, another chapter in an entrepreneurial tale that grew from the values and interests of its owners, even if it was something Champion never initially envisioned.
“I never for a minute thought that this is what I was going to do,” remarked Champion. “And now I’m really happy and I love it — I don’t see myself doing anything else.”