Notes for owners · Channel and customer growth
Interior designers and architects as a channel for tiles, fittings and paints
When a tile, bath fittings or paint seller should court interior designers and architects, and what its trade programme page needs: who qualifies, samples, project registration and a quote path that protects the designer.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 5 min read
On this page
A designer rings for your shade card and asks you to hold a tile lot for a client they will bring in on Saturday. A whole house of tiles, fittings or paint is about to follow. A trade programme page makes that moment routine. It sets out who qualifies, takes sample requests and registers the project, so the designer is credited when the client walks in. It also gives the designer a quote to show the client. Build it if designers already bring you orders you cannot track. Skip it if your sales come from walk-ins and contractors.
Why the specification decides the order in these three trades
The designer specifies, the client approves and someone else buys. Our note on advertising to interior designers covers how to reach studios. This is about what they find when they arrive, and each of your trades gives them a different reason to come back.
Tiles vary in shade from one production lot to the next. A designer needs the whole project from one lot, because a top-up box from a different lot can look wrong on the floor. A seller who will hold a lot against a registered project is solving the designer's biggest worry.
Bath fittings are decided twice: the concealed body goes into the wall before the tiles, and the trim is chosen weeks later. If the designer registers the range early, the plumber fits the right body and the trim order is yours. Our post on bathroom fittings before the plumber visits covers that pairing.
Paint is specified by shade code and bought by the painter, who may have a dealer of their own. A designer who can download your codes room by room and send the painter a schedule is the reason that purchase lands with you.
What goes on the trade page
| Section | What it holds | Why the designer cares |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | One line: practising interior designers and architects with completed projects. One line on who it is not for | Keeps the trade price away from people furnishing their own flat |
| Sign-up | Name, studio, city, portfolio or Instagram link, GSTIN if they bill through the studio, kind of projects, and whether they buy and bill or refer | Short enough to fill on a phone between site visits |
| Verification | A person checks the portfolio and calls before approval | The designer knows their rate is not on offer to everyone |
| Samples | What is in the kit: tile chips by series, finish samples for fittings, painted shade cards; how to ask for more; what is free and what is charged | Samples go into client presentations |
| Project registration | Client name, site area, stage, products shortlisted; how long a registration lasts | Credit when the client visits without them |
| Lot hold and stock check | Request to hold a tile lot or reserve fittings for a registered project | Removes the fear of a mismatched top-up |
| Quote | A named trade contact, a room-by-room quote, and the designer's choice of trade or retail prices on it | They can forward it to the client under their own name |
| For architects | Specification sheets, drawings and test reports, as the maker provides them | Architects specify on paper before anyone visits |
The rule that keeps designers coming back
A quick way to lose a designer is for their client to walk into your showroom and be quoted less than the designer quoted, or be offered a discount to buy direct. The page cannot prevent that. Your floor staff can. Print this where they bill, and say it at every briefing:
If a customer's name or site matches a registered project, the designer's quote stands. Do not offer a lower price. Call the trade contact before you discuss rates.
If your showroom staff earn incentives on walk-in sales, change that first. A salesperson paid to close the customer in front of them may undercut a designer they have never met, and no trade page survives that.
For example: the trade page that collected sign-ups and nothing else
Imagine an invented tile showroom in Mohali, with a paint counter, selling to homeowners across the tricity. It added a page headed "Designer? Register for trade prices", with a form and nothing else. Sign-ups came from anyone with an Instagram page, homeowners after a discount among them. Nobody checked them. Quotes went out as emailed price lists days later. Then a client sent in by a well-known studio was offered a walk-in discount by a salesperson who did not know the studio existed. The studio stopped sending clients.
The showroom rebuilt the page around the table above. Every sign-up got a call and a portfolio check, and verified studios received a sample kit by courier at a cost of about ₹1,800 a kit. Registrations appeared on the billing screen, so the floor staff saw a designer's name before they quoted, and their incentive counted sales to registered clients alongside walk-ins. One named person handled trade quotes. The studio that had left was called by the owner, not by marketing, and agreed to send one project back; the others it had taken elsewhere did not return. Two of the first six kits went to studios that never ordered.
When a trade programme is the wrong channel
Skip it if your range sells on price at the level designers rarely specify, such as basic tiles for rental flats. Skip it if you cannot hold lots or keep a sample library stocked, because a promise you cannot keep is worse than no page. And in towns where the contractor or the mason picks the brand, put the effort into them first.
Count the studios first
List the studios that have sent you a client, with the project and who on your team handled it. A long list, half of it from memory, means you need the page. Start with the lot-hold rule and the floor-staff line above, since they cost nothing. Partner programme design is the related work for the rules behind each row, and e-commerce sales and marketing is the section where tiles, fittings and paint sit. If you want the programme rules and the page designed with you, tell us what you need.
