Boston brothers bring Polish crystal, ceramics to the U.S.
Rusty and Ted Barber are brothers from Boston, Massachusetts, who made the right moves and found the right people in Poland for what became their import business, Voyageur East Company.
Last year, they imported $1.3 million worth of Polish crystal, glass, ceramics and Christmas ornaments, and they serve as agents and consultants for U.S. buyers on another $1.1 million in Polish imports. They deal with 10 Polish factories, directly. This year, they're adding Polish jams to their imports - their first food product.
They expect the business to keep on growing, with direct imports up to $1.5 million this year, says Ted Barber, about 60% of their six-country import business.
When the Barbers made an exploratory trip to Central Europe in 1990, the conventional wisdom was that Hungarians or Czechs probably offered the best potential.
Not so, the Barbers found. "They thought they knew what to sell, and so they were harder to work with," Ted Barber said of the Czechs. "We found a little bit of an 'attitude', basically: a 'prove to us that we need you' attitude."
"In Poland, you found more flexibility. We found working in the Czech Republic and Hungary frustrating. Working in Poland, people were much more conducive to Western business practices, to finding a solution to a problem."
The issue often is product design, not prices. Czech ceramics fell by the wayside compared to many of the Polish products - especially Bolesławiec stoneware.
Voyageur is the largest U.S. importer of Bolesławiec, Barber said, working closely with the company's export manager Jacek Subik.
Bolesławiec may be the highest-profile Polish product sold in the United States today. A Virginia-based restaurant-and-retail chain, Cracker Barrel, now stocks Bolesławiec cups and plates. The high-glitz direct mail powerhouse Williams and Sonoma has forged a linkage with Bolesławiec. "They come up with their own designs and the Polish factory produces it. So the factory has been very good in adapting to the needs of the customers, and that's what it's about," Barber says.
Early in their Polish venture, the Barbers met Dorota Szewc, then a law school student at a Georgia university. She linked them up with her father, Tomasz Szewc of ŁodĽ, a teacher who also had many contacts with artists. He is now their country manager, with part-time help from his son-in-law, Wojciech Zieliński in ŁodĽ.
Szewc helped when the Barbers import business began growing - and a sharp change in strategy proved necessary.
The Barbers had targeted medium-sized companies and artisans in their initial game plan. "We worked with artisans, in glass art, wood inlay, sculpture, oil paintings. One of our first deals was to import a folding, field chair, which we sold to the Nature Company in the U.S."
They sold initially "to museum shops, galleries, interior decorators. We saw that there was limited expansion in that area. The products were beautiful, unique and interesting, but there was a limited market for them over here. So we began to expand into the higher-volume giftware and houseware industry. That's how we first visited Bolesławiec."
They also began exploring the high-caliber Polish crystal factories - and the many factories producing Christmas ornaments.
Competition is now challenging Poland's fragile toehold in U.S. retail markets. "Poland is going to be under pressure, like the U.S., from lower-priced labor," says Barber, including new exporters in Romania, the ever-present Chinese.
"We import crystal only from Poland - in terms of quality and price, nothing matches it. In hand-painted glass, Poland produces slightly different products from Romania, but Romania produces excellent pieces and prices are lower because of their economy. China produces everything - at lower quality, lower prices.
"In stoneware, nobody is able to match the quality and styling of Bolesławiec. It is a unique product. On ornaments, there is a lot of pressure from the Far East but the quality out of Poland is excellent."
And Poland is different from other markets, in another way. The grandson of their manager, in fact, 11-year-old Maciej Zieliński, is spending the summer at the oldest Boys Camp in the United States, in the Adirondeck Mountains. "He's the first Polish boy to go there and has been getting tutored in English for two years to get prepared," Barber said. "We don't have those type of relations in any other country."
Last year, they imported $1.3 million worth of Polish crystal, glass, ceramics and Christmas ornaments, and they serve as agents and consultants for U.S. buyers on another $1.1 million in Polish imports. They deal with 10 Polish factories, directly. This year, they're adding Polish jams to their imports - their first food product.
They expect the business to keep on growing, with direct imports up to $1.5 million this year, says Ted Barber, about 60% of their six-country import business.
When the Barbers made an exploratory trip to Central Europe in 1990, the conventional wisdom was that Hungarians or Czechs probably offered the best potential.
Not so, the Barbers found. "They thought they knew what to sell, and so they were harder to work with," Ted Barber said of the Czechs. "We found a little bit of an 'attitude', basically: a 'prove to us that we need you' attitude."
"In Poland, you found more flexibility. We found working in the Czech Republic and Hungary frustrating. Working in Poland, people were much more conducive to Western business practices, to finding a solution to a problem."
The issue often is product design, not prices. Czech ceramics fell by the wayside compared to many of the Polish products - especially Bolesławiec stoneware.
Voyageur is the largest U.S. importer of Bolesławiec, Barber said, working closely with the company's export manager Jacek Subik.
Bolesławiec may be the highest-profile Polish product sold in the United States today. A Virginia-based restaurant-and-retail chain, Cracker Barrel, now stocks Bolesławiec cups and plates. The high-glitz direct mail powerhouse Williams and Sonoma has forged a linkage with Bolesławiec. "They come up with their own designs and the Polish factory produces it. So the factory has been very good in adapting to the needs of the customers, and that's what it's about," Barber says.
Early in their Polish venture, the Barbers met Dorota Szewc, then a law school student at a Georgia university. She linked them up with her father, Tomasz Szewc of ŁodĽ, a teacher who also had many contacts with artists. He is now their country manager, with part-time help from his son-in-law, Wojciech Zieliński in ŁodĽ.
Szewc helped when the Barbers import business began growing - and a sharp change in strategy proved necessary.
The Barbers had targeted medium-sized companies and artisans in their initial game plan. "We worked with artisans, in glass art, wood inlay, sculpture, oil paintings. One of our first deals was to import a folding, field chair, which we sold to the Nature Company in the U.S."
They sold initially "to museum shops, galleries, interior decorators. We saw that there was limited expansion in that area. The products were beautiful, unique and interesting, but there was a limited market for them over here. So we began to expand into the higher-volume giftware and houseware industry. That's how we first visited Bolesławiec."
They also began exploring the high-caliber Polish crystal factories - and the many factories producing Christmas ornaments.
Competition is now challenging Poland's fragile toehold in U.S. retail markets. "Poland is going to be under pressure, like the U.S., from lower-priced labor," says Barber, including new exporters in Romania, the ever-present Chinese.
"We import crystal only from Poland - in terms of quality and price, nothing matches it. In hand-painted glass, Poland produces slightly different products from Romania, but Romania produces excellent pieces and prices are lower because of their economy. China produces everything - at lower quality, lower prices.
"In stoneware, nobody is able to match the quality and styling of Bolesławiec. It is a unique product. On ornaments, there is a lot of pressure from the Far East but the quality out of Poland is excellent."
And Poland is different from other markets, in another way. The grandson of their manager, in fact, 11-year-old Maciej Zieliński, is spending the summer at the oldest Boys Camp in the United States, in the Adirondeck Mountains. "He's the first Polish boy to go there and has been getting tutored in English for two years to get prepared," Barber said. "We don't have those type of relations in any other country."
