I founded Mr Ralph Lighting in 2013 out of a lifelong love for lighting, and a personal frustration: When renovating my own cottage in Cambridge, NZ, I simply couldn’t find beautiful, affordable lighting.
Back then, the market offered two extremes - beautiful, but very pricey lighting that was way beyond my modest budget, or much cheaper options, but not the style I was looking for.
Around the same time, I started noticing a shift, lighting was having a comeback. European and US magazines were featuring pendants and wall lighting again, after decades of homes being lit by recessed lights. People were moving away from minimalist lighting, and starting to crave the atmosphere and architectural beauty that decorative lighting provides.
I saw an exciting opportunity. I thought, ‘feel the fear, and start something’. While I had never been a business owner, I had spent years working in customer service and many years as a customer service trainer/facilitator in the Telecommunications industry. And so, the Journey began, at my home in Cambridge. I imported some lighting products and created a DIY website.
Today, Mr Ralph is a team of exceptional women, nine of us as I write this. We’re purposely based in provincial New Zealand, with our warehousing in Paeroa, where we design and import our own core range of Mr Ralph products. This strategy has worked so well for us, thanks to reasonable rents, and an extraordinary and loyal team.
Manufacturing our own products has given us so many benefits, we work with a fantastic supplier who brings my designs to life, and we can offer bigger projects any amount of volume needed. We have full control of our inventory, and have 800m2 of space to safely store products, and dispatch NZ wide.
As well as being a busy e-commerce business, we have a dedicated trade specialist who works with our growing base of trade and commercial clients. The icing on the cake is our one and only flagship studio, located in Gordonton, provincial Waikato. We love our location, it's easily accessible for customers from Hamilton, Auckland and the BOP. Having a large studio space gives us a place to play with our products - we have a full-time photographer here who captures our website imagery, and two lighting specialists who can help with ideas and inspiration. You’ll also find me there most of the time.
We have managed to grow our brand over the last 12 years; our Brand and Marketing manager is based at home in New Plymouth and helps us reach customers all over New Zealand.
While Lighting is my passion, it’s matched by my philosophy on great customer service. Every decision we make is grounded in these questions:
I work hard every day to answer ‘yes’ to these questions.
I feel genuinely blessed to work every day with the best people, to have wonderful customers trusting us with their lighting, and to spend my time designing beautiful products that are affordable, and that I’d want in my own home.
This journey has had its ups and downs, and I have learned far more from the mistakes than with any of our successes. My dream is to do this forever, to keep innovating, growing, and keep bringing designer lighting solutions to New Zealand homes.
