About Us

Current consumer culture has some shortcomings:

• Many products are made to only last a short amount of time before they break and we are forced to buy new products.
• Too many products lack utility value. They are unnecessary and simply lie around unused.
• People shop on price to a large extent as it is easy to measure. As other information such as life span and the quality of a product is less clear it is difficult to determine the true value of a product.
• We believe globalisation in terms of information and knowledge sharing is a good thing and that diversity is incredibly important but currently the way materials and products move around the globe is incredibly wasteful.
• Product guarantees are typically 1 year and beyond that consumers are pushed to insure their products against breakage. Manufacturers need to take responsibility for their product quality.
• Businesses have become robotic in customer service situations, decline to empower their staff to really help customers and sometimes do not treat people fairly.

MADE TO LAST is setting out to do things differently:

• Our core focus is to provide our customers with the best value for money products - ones that are priced fairly and that last a very long time.
• All products sold on MADE TO LAST have a clear guarantee shown on the product page. Customers can therefore judge the true cost and value of a product.
• All products are designed in the British Isles by British owned companies. Wherever possible we use British manufacturers too. This helps to strengthen local industries and craftspeople and at the same time means that additional costs are not fed into our products to cover international transport and taxes. 
• Unfortunately for some products / ranges we have found that there are not British manufacturers that can compete on value for money with overseas factories. Where we use factories in other countries we carefully check on sustainable material sourcing processes, we make sure that the manufacturing quality is as good as or better than that available in the British Isles, and we also ensure that working conditions and pay levels for staff in the factories is fair and providing everyone with a living (not just legal minimum) wage. 
• Everything on MADE TO LAST has a high utility value. No nodding dogs or dancing flowers here.
• We aim to offer great customer service to all customers as if you are family or friends. No automated call steps - we trust our team and empower them to make important decisions to best help you.

We believe that we are not alone with these simple aims as we can see that many people are struggling with the same issues everyday.

Hopefully this website will help to improve the quality and sustainability of products sold in the British Isles and also help people to get real value for their money.

For more in depth information on our thinking behind quality, value for money and making our products as sustainable as we can please read this blog post about how sustainable shopping benefits you.