There Is a Pattern to His Success : Entrepreneur: Bob Page’s company, a source for discontinued styles of china, is growing at a dizzying pace.
Bob Page doesn’t have a set of good dishes in his china closet at home but he has at least 60,000 patterns to choose from at the office.
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Page collects and sells old china for a living. He started Replacements Ltd. in 1981 after walking away from a secure accounting job with the state of North Carolina.
The company is the source many people call when all else fails in the search for a lost or broken tea cup from the china set that may be part of the family heirloom.
“We’re really not selling merchandise. We sell sentimentality,” said Page, a 50-year-old who shares his office with his miniature dachshund, Ernie.
His privately held company has grown at a startling pace. It sold $152,000 in merchandise in 1981. Eleven years later, sales mushroomed to $16 million. They are expected to surpass $40 million in 1995.
Page started his business with a pickup truck and a pedestrian knowledge of good china and crystal. He snatched up old sets at estate sales and bought discontinued patterns from manufacturers.
“Everyone thought I had lost my mind,” he said. “My father asked me why I would give up a decent job with good benefits.”
Today, the company receives 7,000 orders a day from all over the world. The company has a showroom at its headquarters in Greensboro, but 90% of its orders are generated from toll-free phone lines.
By the end of the year, the company’s client list should approach a million names.
Some of the names are famous. The Vatican once called for some Noritake cups and saucers. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) ordered a Lenox Tuxedo coffee pot. Barbara Walters and Charlton Heston are repeat customers.
Replacements nearly tripled its work force this year to 335. The company has opened a new 225,000-square-foot warehouse for its 3 million pieces of china, flatware, crystal and other items. Just five years ago, the company had less than 30,000 square feet of warehouse space.
Page has a museum at the company with his own collection of prized porcelain and crystal. He never takes a break from the search for rare pieces to add to the collection.
“I went on vacation for two weeks to California and I spent most of my time checking out the antique stores and flea markets,” he said.
He discovered a crystal cordial glass for $20.
“I’ve seen pictures of them before but I never found one,” Page said, his voice rising with excitement. “It’s most rare.”
Page doesn’t keep any china at home, saying he doesn’t have time to entertain and eats most of his meals out.
Replacements ships out thousands of packages every day and it also receives thousands of packages, large and small. Some are vast shipments of discontinued patterns from manufacturers like Noritake or Lenox.
Others are parcels from individuals, who spotted the company’s advertisements in magazines such as House Beautiful, Southern Living and Better Homes & Gardens.
An advocate of customer service, Page keeps his showroom open 13 hours a day, seven days a week. When business gets brisk, everyone in the executive offices, Page included, is required to help out on the floor.
The same is true when the phone lines are swamped.
“After we placed an ad in Parade magazine, I answered 85 phone orders myself in one day,” he said.
The company has been praised in letters from some of its customers.
A woman in Maplewood, N.J., told of her frustrating quest to complete a set of china her grandmother bought during the Great Depression.
The woman finally found the “Mayflower” pattern at Replacements.
“There are really no words to tell you what your company means to me,” she wrote. “This isn’t replacing things. It’s places, memories, faces and times long forgotten.”
