A Chat With July’s Profile, Doug Mockett, founder/owner of Doug Mockett & Co.

Catalog Success: Where’s the company headquartered?
Doug Mockett: It’s physically located in Torrance, California.

CS: When was the company established?
DM: In early 1981.

CS: When were the first catalogs mailed?
DM: We got into the mailing of the catalog, it had to be about two years later. It wasn’t so much a catalog as it was a single-sheet flyer; mainly because I only had one product at the time and had no money.

CS: What was the one product that you were selling at the time?
DM: Grommets, wire access grommets. We just had basically two different sizes and two different colors.

CS: What are your customer demographics?
DM: Well, our customers are major office furniture manufacturers, they’re large- and mid-sized mill workshops, which are the people who do custom interiors for banks, law firms, board rooms, audio/visual, that type of stuff. And then a whole host of little, small cabinet shops. And then we have another huge market that we don’t sell to but they specify our parts to go into the furnishings of the buildings they’re designing, and that’s architects and designers.

CS: Do you strictly sell B-to-B?
DM: Not really. I mean, we sell to anyone who calls and places an order, but it’s 99 and nine-tenths percent B-to-B.

CS: What’s the primary merchandise you offer?
DM: The main thing we offer and sell are components for office and computer furniture. And that consists of table legs; drawer pulls; innovative components to integrate computers into furniture; a whole line of wire access grommets and wire management, which are the channels to channel wires after they go through the hole in the desk. And the last few years we’ve added a line of components for the kitchen, bath and closet. It is, I think, at the moment 2,500 SKUs.