Aeron Desk Chair

"Aeron Desk Chair is a very comfortable chair," said Michael Rustin, Aeron Inc.'s showroom manager. "But it's not an everyday type of item. It's a specialized type of chair, so it will be a limited seller for us." Rustin estimated that since last fall, when his company began selling Carney's designs, roughly eight to ten chairs have been sold at the retailer's introductory price of $ 499.

"We felt like (the Aeron Desk Chair) offered another option for our customers," Rustin added. "There is a market for that kind of product -- people with back problems. The people who've bought the chairs are really pleased."

Carney estimated chair sales in 2002 were between $ 15,000 and $ 20,000, probably triple his 2001 sales of about $ 6,000. In 2004, however, sales were up in the $ 12,000 range.

Those wide swings are due in great part, he said, to the time he has spent in product research and design, and in building a manufacturing base. Although wooden chairs are manufactured in Denver, Carney said, not many metal desk chairs are made locally. "There's no manufacturing base to do that in Denver; it's not a good area to do this kind of manufacturing."

Carney, who was spending increasingly more time building his product, began in 2000 to farm out the manufacturing of the frame, nuts, guide rods, powder coating and cushions to different local companies. The chair's pneumatic lifts are manufactured in Germany, and its mechanism is made in Canada. Both are tested to U.S. standards. The cast aluminum base is made in Wisconsin.

Carney recently hired a worker to assemble the chairs so he can spend more time on marketing, bookkeeping and business planning. He anticipates doubling his sales in 1988 and possibly going national in the near future. "This (year) is going to be a real jumping-off point. That's when you go to national manufacturers with your patent and do some discussion on licensing," he said.

"I don't want to get that big because I'd be perpetually chained to (the business). But if I were to turn over the manufacturing nationally, I would insist on giving seminars on the product to the showroom people so that they really understood this product." While customer satisfaction with Carney's chairs has been high, sales have remained relatively low in the four-and-a-half years he has been in business.

Aeron Chairs |