NEW YORK — Direct-to-consumer furniture brand Sabai has carved out its niche in the sustainable space, offering its customers domestically made upholstered pieces using recycled, upcycled and plant-based materials.
In the face of tariffs, however, the balancing act of being sustainable and affordable has been challenged, according to CEO Phantila Phataraprasit, with some of its newest and most innovative fabrications coming primarily from foreign producers.
Sabai works with manufacturers in North Carolina and Tennessee to produce its custom furniture, which is primarily in the seating category of sofas, sectionals, loveseats, chairs, ottomans and most recently, sleeper sofas. The focus from the beginning, she said, has been about creating a localized supply chain and working with domestic manufacturers.
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On the materials side, Phataraprasit has had to look farther afield for some of her newest offerings. The cactus leather Sabai uses comes from Mexico and is a more natural alternative to other vegan leathers, which are made using plastic. The leather is made from 40% prickly pear cactus skin and 60% biopolymer, which comes from organic renewable compounds, such as waste materials from the cactus food industry.
She is also using 100% organic hemp, which is sourced in Asia. Although there is a U.S. hemp industry, she said, production is more limited and, thus, more expensive. Other materials used for Sabai’s furniture include a hemp-cotton blend; recycled velvet, made for PET; and GreenGuard Gold-certified upcycled poly.
“It’s a balancing act between making products sustainable, but also affordable,” Phataraprasit said. “We want to reach more people, so you have to have that balance.” The tariffs have gotten her to look for other sources of materials, she said, “but I haven’t found them more affordable elsewhere.”
For now, she said, “we’ve absorbed the cost of tariffs and try to offset these costs, so we won’t have to put that on the consumer.”
Still, she is keeping her eye on the bottom line, noting as Sabai’s costs rise, there could be an impact on retail prices this summer. “The U.S. manufacturing industry doesn’t have the ability and infrastructure to make some of our components, requiring us to source from overseas. For context, some of these components cost between three and five times more to produce in the U.S., if they are available at all.”
Another wild card is the appetite among consumers for buying furniture in the current economic environment. “It’s so hard to tell what the consumer will do,” she said. Sabai saw growth in April, and demand continues to be strong as the initial noise around tariffs has subsided. However, there has been a shift among shoppers toward the brand’s more affordable lines.
“The home space has been challenging,” she said. “We see it leveling off now, … demand has become more normalized.”
Sabai’s draws the largest share of its customer base from 20- to 30-year-olds who are in their second or third apartments or in homes and are located primarily on the East and West Coasts, although the brand has followers in larger cities elsewhere such as Chicago and Austin.
“These are people who care about sustainability,” she said, as well as the planet and their own health. “The umbrella of sustainability is broad,” ranging from repairability and waste reduction to concerns about indoor air quality and an interest in non-toxic and biodegradable materials.
Along with seeking sustainable materials, Phataraprasit said shoppers come to Sabai for its repair and slipcover programs. Young families with kids and pets appreciate the options of repairing over replacing and swapping out slipcovers instead of replacing an entire piece of furniture.
Currently, Sabai has a single showroom in Brooklyn and partners with Boston-based décor store Flourish & Foundry to present some of its products. Phataraprasit said she’s interested in doing more retail, just not yet.
“It has been validating,” she said, about the response to the showroom. “But also, that’s a side of the business that would need attention.” She said partnerships are a more likely way to go to address those customers who want to see products in person.
Sabai is also working on growing its trade business, which is now primarily designer-focused, but could expand into the hospitality space, a group that may appreciate with the brand’s repairability focus, she said.
