About us

Ben and Flo, a couple of super cool and dynamic entrepreneurs passionate about chic and old-fashioned decor. In real life, Ben is Benjamin, he has been working in the field of sport for years. He runs the marathon in 2h40 and uses his web skills to serve his passion: sport, of course. Florence is more passionate about plants and garden design when she isn’t busy taking care about chicken and rabbits. So she doesn’t have much time to spend in the company but she has at least the last word.

Then we have the second team who gravitates around the company on time or regularly. Let’s start with “Rach”, our artist turner who lives and works in the beautiful Quercy area. We are also working with Vince, the wood turner just a stone’s throw from our place. Olivier is the guy who gives us a hand on the design of the website.” Lou” is helping us to source the best products in England and the most beautiful leathers for our vintage balls. Marine is seriously helping us lately to prepare your orders and taking the phone when you have some requirements to share with us. Marine is the superwoman behind both of us, she makes sure that your order perfectly meets your expectations.

 

 Our story

In the beginning, we created the website « à la recherche du meilleur » (looking for the best) in order to propose a selection of discoveries with a quality artisanal expertise. That’s how we came to a knife 100% made in France manufactured in Thiers and also how we fell in love with a range of artisanal handbags made by a young American fashion designer. We had very soon a strong demand on our decoration niche products: old sports items and more particularly on the vintage rugby ball, our best-seller still today !

All the products we are proposing meet a fundamental criterion for us: quality. We are highly committed to this quality approach by conviction. We only keep the best products to offer good value for money to our customers.

To manage it, we use our buyer skills and quality experience to help to support local crafts. Even when we have to source products abroad, we always think in parallel about a way to manufacture the products by ourselves or if not possible, how to find a partner nearby that can be able to make it for us. This is the case for our wooden tees. On our moderate size we support the French expertise and the European expertise in our neighbouring countries.

Ben and Flo

Our prices

 

Our prices are calculated as accurately as possible thanks to an optimised management of our expenses (no door threshold, bulk shipments or minimum packaging, etc.).

We favour direct sales without intermediaries. Moreover, with less than 50 products in our catalogue, we can stock more quantities without having to mobilise a large amount of cash for this.

As this is a complementary activity (not to say a hobby), our margins are low because we do not need to be paid as such. Moreover, we try to ensure a fair distribution of profits between our suppliers/manufacturers and ourselves. Sometimes we even “earn nothing” on a product to guarantee it to you at a fair price, whereas we earn more easily on a product that we are the only one to offer.

Here are some of our secrets for offering you great value for money without having to relocate to Luxembourg.

A little anecdote: with the fluctuating exchange rates for our purchases in England, we have found ourselves earning nothing on our vintage rugby balls for example. Not wanting to exceed the fateful €50 mark, we therefore proposed paying options to ensure a few euros margin on this product that we sell a lot. That’s how the glossing / inflating options and gift wrapping were born 😉

The quality !!

 

This is the key word in our dealings with our suppliers and customers… Our customers are satisfied or their money back. If several cases of non-conformity were to occur for the same product, it would automatically be withdrawn from sale for expertise by our suppliers.

We try to build an offer that provides the essentials. Firstly, because we have noticed that most merchants generally offer too many choices in which customers can get lost. This involves more costs (storage, management, etc.) which inevitably increases the price. But also and above all, because we are in favour of “less is more” in a society where there is an abundance of choice. So we stay in our niche of vintage sports products but we try to do it well.

 

For whom ?

 

In addition to individuals looking for low prices, we also supply small shops, retailers, photographers for accessorising their fashion or wedding photos, event specialists, decoration professionals, etc. We are also a supplier of vintage decoration for the restaurant and hotel industry. As you can see, we regularly wear our supplier/wholesaler hat and offer discounts on quantities ranging from 5 to 30%.

Our suppliers

 

We have no partnership contracts with our craftsmen and manufacturers, only the quality of their products determines our choices. We try as much as possible to have only one “supplier” per type of product in order to maximise the quantities ordered and to be able to benefit from more advantageous prices by optimising logistics.

We have selected various panels (customers, relatives, restaurants, etc.) to evaluate new products before listing them.