Kitchen Secret #6: Kitchen Designer - How much does a Kitchen Designer earn?

 How much does a Kitchen Designer earn?

Contrary to whatever the kitchen designer might tell you, many kitchen designers are self-employed. This of course means that they won’t earn a penny unless they make that sale.

Some designers might earn as much as £2000 in a week.

On average, kitchen companies pay their designers between 7% and 12% of order value if they sell a kitchen for cash. However, this figure can rise to as much as 20% if you choose to buy a kitchen on the finance package that they offer. A few, unscrupulous companies also pay the designer around 50% of overcharges. This means that if the designer sells the kitchen for more than the ‘book price’ then he or she gains from this overcharge. Thankfully, the majority of kitchen companies aren’t like this.

In theory, it sounds as if kitchen designers make lots and lots of money. In practice, it isn’t like that. Lots of customers like to haggle over the price – and a self-employed designer would rather sell the kitchen at a reduced price instead of not getting a sale.

Most kitchen companies therefore also set up a sliding scale of reduced commissions that a designer can earn if he sells a kitchen for less than the official price. An example of the reduced commissions that a kitchen designer might earn can be found in figure 1.

This offers an example of this percentage of reduced commission that a designer might earn in this circumstance.

Figure 1:

Amount below 'book price': 0 > 2% 2 > 7% 7 > 14% 14 > 20% 20% +

£ Earnings: Normal 75% 50% 30% £60

As can be seen from the figures above, if a kitchen designer sells a kitchen at 1.9% below book price, then he would still earn his full commission. Also, in this particular example if he sells a kitchen at 13% below book price, then he would only earn 50% of his commission. Should he only be able to sell the kitchen at a price level that is more that 20% below book price, then, if the company chooses to accept the order, the designer will earn £60.

In practice, a designer would do well to ‘convert’ 40% of his appointments into actual sales.

However, the success of a kitchen designer doesn’t tend to depend upon overall conversion rates, although it helps. Some designers are stronger at knowing when a customer is willing to pay more for something than others.

These are the designers than can earn thousands of pounds every week.

In figure 2, we compare the earnings of 2 individual designers.

Figure 2:

Kitchen 1: Kitchen 2: Kitchen 3: Total earnings:

Designer 1: £400 £700 £1000 £2100

Designer 2: £60 £350 £300 £710

Two kitchen designers each sell three kitchens in a week. Kitchen 1 is a cash sale of £4000. However, designer 2 reduced his kitchen price by 21%. Kitchen 2 was another cash sale, but this time for £7000. This time the extra discount offered by designer 2 was 13%. Kitchen number 3 was sold on finance, but an additional discount of 19% given by designer 2 cost him £700 in unearned commission! Now you know why a kitchen designer often starts at a higher price and works his way down!