Kitchen Designer

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 over charges. 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 ¨C 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:

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:

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!

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