**The Akti Chair**

Comfortable and beautifully intricate - for any restaurant, hotel, office or home.

We are all designers... When we go out to vote we are really participating in the transformation of a country. We take experience, history and current trends and events with us to guide our decision.

Much like the design process at Woodlam, we take inspiration from what is happening in the industry locally and internationally, feedback from our clients (the likes of architects, interior designers, procurement specialistic etc.) and we use our 33 years of experience to create designed items of furniture that are fit for purpose, comfortable, durable and designed for our client's needs.

Current Trends and Insights

We are seeing an uptick in the furniture industry in South Africa when compared to 2023 with outdoor furniture, bedroom furniture and living room furniture seeing a 1.8%, 1.4% and 1.7% increase from 2023.

What is understandably interesting with regards to sales channels is the increase in online and e-commerce sales compared to offline or direct sales. Going back to 2020 which saw the biggest increase of online sales (naturally due to COVID) at 24.9% of total sales, in 2024 we now sit at 39.5% of all sales. The furniture industry is changing in terms of how to reach your clients and make sales, but is still heavily dependant on direct selling via offline means.

There is still a large demand in South Africa for furniture and the industry is strong with local South Africans demanding mostly handcrafted wooden furniture from local companies. There is also a general trend of sustainable practices being demanded by the consumer.

Chair Range of the Month

We have chosen an exciting chair for our Chair Range of the Month - the Akti chair. It is a comfortable and beautifully intricate chair which is incredibly versatile in it's purpose. It can be used as a showstopper piece in any restaurant, hotel room or lobby, office, and even used at home for the living room, bedroom or with a swivel base as a beautiful and comfortable home office chair.

What is so unique about the Akti chair is that there is 25m of detailed braiding making up the back of the chair. This chair always starts a conversation.