FRIENDSHIP FABRICATIONS

Description

"The Co-op does not mark up our house product prices.
Our house products prices are sold at cost price, meaning material + labour + overheads. Conventional furniture stores add a 50% to 300% markup on top.

Why are we selling below market price?

We are tired of middlemen and dropship retailers; and

Everyone should have access to long lasting, high quality home goods. Affordable buy-it-for-life essential goods is how we do our part for environmental justice.

Our apprentices start at 2x the minimum wage. And it only gets better.
We raise the bar on work in Malaysia by paying more. How can we afford to pay more? We do not have shareholder owners leaching on the productivity of workers; turns out that leaves a lot of extra money for workers.

Pay is scaled according to a standardised skill chart. The more skill it takes to complete a project, the higher we pay per hour. This is reflected in our product design and prices.

The Co-op does not retain profits nor have stock value.
We are a SKM registered Koperasi that also operates as a nonprofit.

This means profits are not extracted nor retained for shareholders. All members are entitled to democratically vote on how funds are distributed, whether it is purchasing new tools, paying for education, or increasing wages.

The Coop will never be sold, and this keeps our mission free from profit extraction motives. This protects product quality and workers in the long run.

Everything you see in our shop is made in-house by us.
We are not “creative directors” curating a taobao collection. We are not “interior designers” middle-manning your purchases.

We are proudly craftspeople, who are invested in sharing skills and making the finest quality goods at mid range prices in Malaysia.

We teach skills for free.
We believe in open source. Gatekeeping skills is a fundamental obstacle to class mobility.

Conventionally, we have to pay for a degree or pay for upskilling. Well at FRIENDS, individuals serious about their craft can get paid by the co-op to learn as an apprentice, or you can join our recreational membership to learn communally.

We lower the cost of recreational access for the community.
Community maker spaces may be becoming common in K.L., but nothing about the pricing or structure suggests “community”.

We believe in building truly public spaces, and actively aim to keep recreational access to our workshop as low cost as possible. We do not profit on space rental, and funds accrued from recreational membership is directly used to purchase community tools.

We are building a machine to change the way production is done.
By manufacturing our own crafts, we have already taken one step towards building better supply chains. Moving upwards, we want to explore how we get our materials.

The co-op aims to use our profits to finance sustainable forestry, wildlife protection, and restorative permaculture. All while paying workers their fair share to build a better world."