A Thai brand with over 30 years’ experience in producing brooms for exports is now looking closer at its domestic market.
“The highlight of Somboonphol Craft products is the way we use the same raw materials to produce quality products that can be adjusted to meet the various needs of customers from different countries,” says Somboon Vivatananukul, Founder and Managing Director of Somboonphol Craft, a Thai company that takes local hand-woven brooms to the global market.
“We started as a small farming business in the north of Thailand until one day in 1986, one of our business partners from Taiwan decided to move their broom production base to Thailand.”
Since then, Somboonphol Craft has focused on exporting their brooms to foreign markets.
“We started to expand our oversea markets with DITP at BIG & BIH, which brought us many international customers, which now, besides Taiwan and Japan, includes Korea, France, Italy, Sweden, the US, Switzerland, and many more” says Somboon Vivatananukul.
“Japan is our main market; they use brooms in their daily life, which is different from western countries, such as Switzerland and the US, that prefer having brooms for decoration. The Japanese need a good quality broom and often change their brooms every one to two years, so brooms are always in demand,” he says.
“We are also able to produce traditional Japanese brooms. Today, the Japanese market is divided into two segments: the elderly market that uses the traditional brooms, and the teen market that prefers using design brooms to meet their current lifestyle demands. Our brooms can be manufactured and designed to meet the needs of both markets.”
The quality of Somboonphol Craft’s brooms is guaranteed by various global awards, including The Seal of Excellence for Handicrafts (South East Asia) awarded by UNESCO and AHPADA in 2007.
While Somboonphol Craft is a 100% international market brand, Baan Boon Brooms is the brand used for the domestic market.
In the future, the company plans to focus more on the domestic market. As for the international market, it will focus on maintaining its existing customer base, but may need to develop a product model to suit current market demands.
“The first thing should be to maintain the quality of Thai products. Our uniqueness lies in manufacturing and design development, as well as building trust in doing business together. Achieving this will help Thai entrepreneurs develop from local businesses to global ones,” says Boonnita Vivatananukul, Operations Manager of Somboonphol Craft and Brand Manager of Baan Boon Brooms, the eldest daughter of Somboon Vivatananukul.
Words by Natthinee Ratanaprasidhi
