Dixon launched the CODE lighting system at Virtual Design Festival
The coronavirus pandemic will force design brands to manufacture more products locally, hold less stock and be less reliant on physical stores, according to designer Tom Dixon.
Dixon said the pandemic is "bound to" change the way brands operate as they move to reduce their dependence on lengthy global supply chains and support their local communities.
"Everybody talks about local manufacturing and local consumption, but now we're slightly being forced to confront that possibility a bit more," Dixon told Dezeen in a live interview as part of Virtual Design Festival last month.
The pandemic has accelerated the shift to online shopping, Dixon said, presenting a challenge to brands that rely on physical retail spaces and traditional distribution networks.
"A real struggle for distributors and retailers"
"It's gonna be a real struggle for traditional distributors and for the retailers because we know that people have got even more into the habit of shopping online and gotten out of the habit of visiting physical spaces," said the London-based entrepreneur.
"So for our partners in distribution and in showrooms and the rest of it, that's something where I think we need to cooperate with them to find ways of helping them to survive."
Brands additionally need to explore ways of holding less stock, Dixon said, to reduce waste and warehousing costs.
"I think that's got to be a good thing, to reduce the amount of stock," said Dixon, who sells roughly half his products to the professional architectural market and half to domestic customers.
"Why would you make anything until somebody wants it?"
"Why would you make more than you know you can sell?" he said. "Why would you make anything until somebody wants it?"
The live interview was part of the launch of CODE, a new LED lighting system developed with Austrian architectural lighting brand Prolicht.