Value added
In the language of the merchant, dealers and resellers are correctly referred to as trading partners; in other words, dealers and manufacturers enter into a partnership. Partnerships, in turn, are based on trust, promises and compromises. We at Holst Porzellan know our strengths and do not shy away from comparison with other brands and suppliers. Dear retailers, compare us and find out whether we can offer you added value with our properties as a benefit for your work.
Top 1 - Product & porcelain expertise
According to the legal definition of the European Union, Holst Porzellan/Germany is a manufacturer. Although we do not have a production plant in Halle/Westphalia ourselves, we work and think as a manufacturer! Our collections consist of our own designs, our own moulds and we have a direct influence on the production of our articles. The name and the Holst Porzellan family have been part of the German porcelain landscape since 1928 and we have been producing the Holst Porzellan/Germany brand since 1998. Similar to the German Beer Purity Law of 1516, we ensure that our porcelain really is porcelain and has been fired with the raw materials kaolin, feldspar and quartz at over 1,320 °C to form the mullite that stabilises porcelain. Porcelain imitations such as Vitreous China, New Bone China or Fine China do not correspond to the quality of genuine feldspar porcelain and must not be wrongly labelled as porcelain, even if many other manufacturers and retailers now refer to them as such. We make porcelain! From professionals for professionals.
Top 2 - Safety through quality standards
Holst Porzellan sells the highest quality level of hard porcelain, i.e. feldspar porcelain fired above 1,320 °C. We only work with the traditional raw materials kaolin, feldspar and quartz. This makes our porcelain resistant to mechanical and chemical stress. Our products are dishwasher-safe and particularly suitable for professional catering use. Our porcelain is heat-resistant up to 350 °C and is also suitable for post-processing (printing/vignette/decoration). We go even further when it comes to testing the quality of our items, and not just in line with the now standardised requirement that porcelain must comply with the Foodstuffs Ordinance: our porcelain has a quality certificate from an official body. We regularly have the test results of the conformity tests confirmed a second time by TÜV Rheinland. Holst porcelain is officially tested quality!
Top 3 - Hygiene & sustainability
Genuine porcelain with a glaze hardness > 5 Mohs is subject to far less wear than all other ceramic crockery. The worst enemy of ceramic crockery is not breakage, but corrosion caused by washing-up liquid. Imitation porcelain starts to corrode after just a few hundred washes - or sooner - and thus loses its hygienic stability. The corrosion resistance of real porcelain is many hundred per cent higher and therefore represents a long-lasting, hygienic and visually perfect use. This not only saves money but also conserves valuable resources and can therefore be described as extremely sustainable.
Top 4 - Range width & depth
Hardly any other porcelain manufacturer offers its customers such a wide range of products as Holst Porcelain. We don't just stock fast-moving items from the various areas of the collection, but serve up a broadly expanded range. In the current collection you will find around 4,000 items and ideas in porcelain. This means that Holst Porzellan has one of the most extensive porcelain collections in the industry. We take care not to sell our customers unnecessary porcelain! When we develop new items, they have to fulfil several functional areas. For example, our saucers can serve many different top cups from different series.
The three quality levels of Holst Porzellan - High Quality, Basic and Budget - are precisely tailored to the needs of the respective end users. A hospital has different quality and price expectations than a restaurant, and we at Porzellan cater to these different types of customer expectations in a structured way.
Top 5 - Liability protection
Only a few retailers and consumers realise that porcelain in commercial use is subject to a large number of laws and regulations. According to the standardised EU directives, violations can result in fines and even prison sentences for intentional offences. Anyone who currently sells crockery for commercial use must at least comply with the LFGB (Foodstuffs Commodities Ordinance) and the Product Liability Act. In other words: Anyone selling porcelain without a base mark is now intentionally committing a criminal offence. Holst porcelain bears our logo and is therefore protected from any criminal prosecution. For consumers and retailers, our logo symbolises compliance with all existing regulations and requirements, as well as hygiene and durability. Holst porcelain is safe!
Top 6 - Long after-sales commitments
We have been working in the porcelain industry since 1928 and know the requirements of our dealers and their end customers. Introduced collections run for at least 10 years at Holst Porzellan in order to guarantee an appropriate repeat purchase. Even if we discontinue an item from the current stock collection, we can make a repeat purchase possible as part of special productions or reactivations. The moulds are available at all times.
Top 7 - Logistics expertise & short delivery times
By stocking more than 1.8 million items on stock, we have more than 1,300 main items from our collection available all year round in our warehouse in Bielefeld. Many hundreds of items are regularly added for seasonal occasions. Standard commercial quantities leave our warehouse within 2 working days and usually reach our customers within 5 days. The current delivery rate (as of 2/2024) is over 95% on average. On request, we also deliver orders from our trading partners directly to their customers in drop shipments, thus saving unnecessary delivery routes. These short delivery times are an important factor for consumers today. Above all, we relieve the pressure on our retailers' capital commitment and liquidity without reducing their ability to deliver.
Top 8 - Environmental protection
Holst porcelain comes from gas kilns, which produce significantly lower carbon emissions than the "cheaper" firing methods. Thanks to our high level of production expertise, we are able to dispense with one firing stage - biscuit firing - compared to many other manufacturers, especially German ones, thus saving valuable resources. This is one of the reasons why many of our items are usually cheaper than so-called premium porcelain. Furthermore, we completely dispense with unnecessary and environmentally harmful plastic and gift packaging, foils, blister packs and shrink-wrap. Holst porcelain is only packed and sold in recyclable cardboard packaging. It is not in line with our philosophy to charge items 20% or more for packaging and, in keeping with our motto "Simple & Strong", we limit ourselves to recyclable cardboard and paper. We have regularly received an environmental certificate for this work from official bodies for many years.
Top 9 - Favourable collection average
We would never claim to be the "cheapest"! Nevertheless, one of the aims of our work is to make the collection average in all three quality levels favourable and therefore attractive for the trade. In a direct comparison of just 10 different items, you will realise that Holst Porzellan - with equivalent quality - usually always offers the cheapest overall average when combined. The huge breadth of the range (see Top 4) together with the favourable collection average results in a lucrative overall range, especially for resale. Freight costs, administrative effort and, above all, article and range maintenance can be significantly reduced in the purchasing departments and in replenishment. The bundling of freight costs alone can save up to 18% (as of 2/2024).
Top 10 - Availability 24/7
Each registered dealer receives their own individual access to our protected Internet area. Through this "window", each partner can quickly access the same data around the clock as we do. For each item, a partner can see the quantity available for immediate delivery and the current net purchase price. We also take any offer prices into account by displaying both prices. And in the rare case that an item is not available, our website provides information on whether and at what stage of production the item is. This service offers our retailers speed and, above all, reliability in their direct sales work just in time.
Top 11 - High level of consulting expertise
Hardly any other manufacturer of ceramic tableware offers such comprehensive information and transparency for each item as Holst Porcelain. We not only indicate the type and quality of one of our products, we also explain in detail on further pages what is behind this information. More than half of our items now have a detailed advice page where we describe the uses for that product and even offer serving suggestions. And new advice pages are added every day. We are working every day to improve our online advice in order to increase this professional edge on a daily basis.
Top 12 - Loyalty to our re-seller
With almost 100 years of retail experience, we know exactly where we feel comfortable as a brand and what our retail partners expect. Price wars with large online portals, supermarkets and cash & carry chains are not healthy for retailers and resellers. In particular, non-food promotions by discounters, such as Tognana porcelain at Lidl, not only destroy the value of porcelain in general, but also the price and condition promises for the specialised trade. With a serious and selective sales policy, we ensure that our prices and promises to the trade are honoured. We only sell under one brand and do not hide behind a nebulous multi-brand strategy such as Bauscher/Schönwald/Tulu, or Kutahya/Mitterteich in order to undermine sales commitments.
Top 13 - Total predictability
Anyone who studies the product range books of the well-known porcelain brands today will quickly realise that the former manufacturers have developed into new tabletop suppliers. In addition to porcelain, entire table-top concepts such as melamine, glass, cutlery, table linen and much more are on offer. However, what at first glance appears to be appealing and well conceptualised is actually a slowly but steadily growing enemy of the retail trade. Almost every long-established retailer has built up its brand partners over many years. Examples include glass from Schott-Zwiesel, porcelain from Bauscher, cutlery from Picard & Wielpütz and serving utensils from Spring. From now on, a good "Zwiesel dealer" should sell Fortessa porcelain, otherwise it will no longer fit in with the sales orientation in the long term. A good Villeroy & Boch retailer should also carry the glass and cutlery, a RAK retailer should carry the cutlery and glass of the brands. We at Holst Porzellan only make porcelain and distance ourselves from any complementary product ranges that restrict retailers in their freedom to design their own product ranges. If a retailer is planning a new store with Holst Porzellan, he need have no fear that we will act as friends for porcelain and enemies for cutlery. We only make porcelain and we are good at it!
Top 14 - Cost & price sensitivity
For many years, we were proud to compete with our competitors at national and international exhibitions. Holst Porzellan's crowning and last trade fair appearance was at Hofex, the leading trade fair for Hong Kong, Macau and Mainland China. Then we realised that these huge costs are paid for by our customers in coffee cups, soup bowls and plates. Since Corona-2020, however, our customers no longer want to pay unnecessary costs via the goods and they pay extreme attention to the best price-performance ratio. No consumer will pay a higher price for an egg cup just because it was exhibited at Ambiente or Internorga. The majority of our customers also no longer want to leaf through paper catalogues when they need a Ramquin mould. And we don't want to stand around uselessly for 3 hours every 5 days on an exhibition stand that costs 70,000 euros and has to be paid for with plates and platters. Modern, sustainable and future-orientated retail works differently today and we are consistently following this path in terms of cost stability. In 2023, we were probably the only porcelain supplier that did not increase its prices and in 2024 we were probably the only one that was able to reduce the price of all items by more than 50% compared to the previous year.
Top 15 - Protection of our partner
As mentioned above, partnerships are based on trust, promises and compromises. With the countless brands and ranges of porcelain, it is difficult enough to win over a customer for a product and thus for yourself. Once a need has been concretised, usually with a great deal of time, sampling and offers, the order is far from certain for almost all brands. In the past, it was only the local dealers who underbid each other, but today the Internet with its Europe-wide suppliers makes things even more difficult. In the worst case, often with large, lucrative orders and customers, even resellers fight against direct offers from their partners' representatives. The better known the brand, the greater the price transparency and the price pressure. We at Holst Porzellan are a small, medium-sized brand that is happy to forego an order from another direction in favour of its partners. Concentrating on regional sales partners is an important success factor.
Top 16 - established since 1928
There are only a handful of companies in the German porcelain industry that have not gone bankrupt in the course of their history! Most of the illustrious names such as Hutschenreuther, Arzberg, Winterling or Walküre and many more exist only as names and no longer as manufacturing companies. And all the others that do not bear this stigma have changed their sales orientation at least once in the past 25 years. Not us! The Holst company and the Holst porcelain brand have been owned by our family since 1928. We exist without any outside capital with an equity ratio of more than 40% and can therefore survive turbulence such as lockdowns and economic crises. Our sales policy is the word of the entrepreneur for which we personally vouch. For us, the word of the merchant counts!
Holst Porzellan ist erklärter Partner des Handel
und das wird so bleiben!