White Glove Logistics for Interior Designers Nationwide: Running Projects in Several States
Interior designers working in more than one city can use Elite Anywhere's 34 warehouse locations to receive, hold and install each project where it is, with one way of working and one portal for all of them. A studio based in one state with clients in three others does not need three receiving warehouses, three delivery companies and three ways of finding out what has arrived. It needs one logistics company with a warehouse location close to each job and the same standard at every one.
Much of what is written about white glove logistics for interior designers assumes a single project in the designer's home city. That is not how a growing practice works. Clients have second homes. Referrals arrive from other states. A designer who furnished a client's city apartment is asked to do the beach house, and then the client's daughter's place across the country. This article is about the practical side of running several of those projects at once, nationwide, without the logistics taking over the studio.
Why several projects in several states go wrong
The difficulty is rarely any single project. It is the differences between them. One project's furniture goes to a local receiving warehouse the designer has used for years. Another's goes to a company found through a search, with its own forms, its own hours and its own idea of what "received" means. A third goes straight to the client's house because nobody had time to arrange anything else, and a contractor signs for it.
Each arrangement might work on its own. Together they mean the studio keeps three different records, learns about damage in three different ways, and spends its time reconciling them. The designer's attention, which should be on the rooms, goes on the admin of three receiving operations that have never spoken to each other.
One account, a warehouse location near each project
Elite Anywhere's network has ten staffed hubs, from Long Island City and Alexandria on the East Coast to Commerce, Hayward and Indio in California, with Denver, Tempe, Del Valle, Franklin and Doral between them, and further warehouse locations that bring the total to 34. A designer opens one account, and each project uses the warehouse location nearest to it.
In practice the studio adopts a simple rule: every vendor order for a project is addressed to that project's warehouse location, with the project name on the order. A Miami job goes to Doral; a desert job goes to Indio; a Manhattan job goes to Long Island City. A coastal house in Tampa, for instance, has its furniture addressed to our warehouse in Tampa, where it is received, recorded and held until the house is finished.
The rule is the same for every project, so the junior designer placing orders does not need to remember which receiving company handles which client. The address changes; the process does not.
The same receiving standard everywhere
The reason a single company matters is that the designer can rely on what "received" means without checking each location. At every Elite Anywhere warehouse location, an arriving shipment is checked against the list the studio sent, and its outside packaging is photographed. Each piece gets a barcode. Elite Anywhere asks for the bill of lading for each shipment, which matters on partial and split orders, because it shows what the vendor actually sent rather than what was ordered.
If a carton arrives damaged, the studio is told before anything goes into storage, and the designer decides what happens next. Damage is documented and the claim is filed with the vendor. If the designer wants to see inside a particular carton, to confirm a fabric, a finish or the glaze on a pair of lamps, it is opened and inspected on request, at no charge. And when a shipment arrives with no name on it, as roughly two in ten do, the team calls the carrier or the shipper to find out whose it is rather than leaving it unclaimed.
For a designer running projects in several states, the value is not any single step. It is that every step happens the same way in Tampa as in Phoenix, so a report from any location means the same thing.
One view across every project
The single most useful thing for a multi-state practice is being able to see everything in one place. Elite Anywhere gives each account a login to its own warehouse system, and a designer's projects sit side by side in it. For each item, the studio can see whether it is on the way, received, in storage or delivered, follow its tracking, and message the warehousing team about it directly.
That turns a Monday morning of phone calls into a few minutes at a screen. The designer can tell a client in one state that the dining chairs are in and the table is a week out, and tell a client in another state that their install can be booked, without calling two warehouses to check. Clients themselves can follow their pieces through photo check-ins and live tracking.
Several calendars, one warehouse system
Projects in different states rarely run to the same schedule. One is waiting on a contractor, another on a building's approval, a third on the client's return from abroad. Storage that fits each timeline is what lets the designer keep ordering without worrying about when the house will be ready.
Elite Anywhere keeps each project's pieces in climate-controlled storage at its warehouse location, secured, with pest and humidity control, and with no minimum period, so a slow project does not crowd a fast one. A designer who cannot fly out to look at a stored sofa can ask for fresh photographs of it. A client who lives near the warehouse can visit to see a piece. Cover applies to goods while they are in storage.
Install days in other states
The hardest part of running projects in several states is install day itself, because the designer cannot be in every place at once. That is where a consistent crew standard counts most.
The routine on site does not change from state to state. A text reaches the client roughly half an hour ahead. Before the first carton crosses the threshold, the crew lays protection over the floors along the path, the door frames and the stair rails. Anything heavy rides on proper moving equipment. Then the room is built to the designer's plan: pieces unpacked and assembled where they will stand, case goods leveled, mirrors and art hung, and chandeliers and other fixtures hung ready for the electrician. Orders from several vendors normally come together on one delivery, so a room is installed in a single visit. A large project that cannot fit an ordinary working day is spread over more than one, and the designer agrees that plan beforehand.
Before leaving, the crew clears every box and wrapper, photographs the finished room's pieces, and asks the client in person whether anything arrived damaged and how the day went. The sign-off is documented and retained, which gives a designer who watched from another state a record of exactly how the install ended. Everything handled with care, and evidence that it was.
A week in a three-state practice
It helps to picture how this looks from the studio. Take a practice with a coastal house under way in Tampa, an apartment for a returning client in Miami and a living room to finish in Savannah.
On Monday the studio places the last orders for the Tampa house. Every one carries the project name and the Tampa warehouse address, and the vendors are told the receiving window: Monday to Friday, 9am to 3pm, by appointment. On Tuesday the login shows two of those orders already on the way from earlier in the month, and a console for the Miami client received at Doral the day before.
On Wednesday a message arrives from Doral: a carton for the Miami apartment came in with a crushed corner. It has been photographed and nothing has been put away. The designer asks for an inspection, sees the damage in the photographs, and tells the warehouse to document it for the vendor and keep the rest of the order on hold. The claim goes to the vendor that afternoon.
On Thursday the Savannah living room is installed. The designer is not there; the plan went to the crew in advance, the pieces are placed to it, and the client is asked in person to confirm their condition and say how the day went. The designer had marked one lamp to be moved if the client preferred it by the window, and it is. By evening the studio has the sign-off and the photographs. On Friday the Tampa client, who is overseas, asks to see the dining table being held for them, and fresh photos are sent from storage.
None of that week involved a phone call to find out where something was. That is the practical difference one company makes when the projects are spread across several states.
Projects without a warehouse next door
Not every project is in a city with its own warehouse location, and it does not need to be. Elite Anywhere delivers anywhere in the country. Savannah and Orlando are typical of the projects a Florida-focused practice might take on alongside a job in Tampa: Elite Anywhere delivers to both as part of its nationwide delivery, with the same receiving record, the same portal and the same install standard as the rest of the designer's work.
Buildings, and pieces that move between projects
Condo and apartment projects add a building manager to the cast. Towers commonly ask for proof of the crew's insurance, a reserved service elevator and a set time at the dock. Designers often sort this out themselves; Elite Anywhere will just as readily provide the certificate of insurance and make both bookings. Oversized pieces that defeat the elevator or the stair can be hoisted.
Multi-state work also means pieces that need to travel between projects: a client's favorite chair moving from the city apartment to the new country house, or a rug bought in one state for a project in another. Elite Anywhere handles moves between states end to end, from pickup, where the piece's condition is documented, to installation at the other end.
Who else works this way
Interior designers are the core of multi-state receiving and installation, but the same network serves the businesses designers work alongside: showrooms delivering sold pieces to clients in other states, furniture manufacturers without crews of their own in a region, art galleries sending work to collectors, procurement offices and hospitality projects furnishing several sites, and private households with more than one home. Elite Anywhere installs for all of them, and makes more than 50,000 deliveries a year.
Setting up a multi-state practice with one logistics company
A few things, agreed at the start, make the arrangement work smoothly across every project.
- A project name for each job, used on every vendor order, so arrivals can be matched without a phone call.
- The warehouse location for each project, chosen by where the project is, and given to vendors when the order is placed.
- The studio's list for each project, the record arrivals are checked against.
- Who decides about damage, so the warehouse knows whom to tell.
- Which pieces the studio will want inspected on request, typically custom upholstery, matched finishes and vintage pieces bought from photographs.
- The building requirements for each address, so certificates and elevators are arranged before install day.
The short version
White glove logistics for interior designers with projects in several states comes down to consistency. Elite Anywhere gives a practice one account across 34 warehouse locations, the same receiving standard at each, one login that shows every project side by side, storage for as long as each project needs, and an install crew that works the same way in every state, so the designer can take on the next project wherever it is.
Robert Sabo is Director of Operations at Elite Anywhere, which provides white glove delivery, receiving and installation from ten staffed warehouses, delivering nationwide.
