Erik Darmstetter
CEO of Office Furniture Liquidations
By Rudy Arispe | Photography by David Teran
Inside the 90,000-square-foot warehouse, showroom and a planned distribution center at Office Furniture Liquidations, you’ll find everything you can possibly need to furnish your home or corporate office “except the office politics,” as CEO Erik Darmstetter likes to put it.
As far as the eyes can see, you’ll see a sea of new and reusable desks, chairs, cabinets, conference tables, dressers, and so much more at very reasonable prices. Although some might have a small scratch or dent, don’t let that deter you.
“A lot of times people will come in, look around and ask where the used office furniture is. They don’t realize they’re looking at it. We’re very picky about the furniture we bring in. We don’t sell junk,” Darmstetter emphatically states.
Office Furniture Liquidations is just one of many businesses that the entrepreneurial-minded Darmstetter has founded throughout the years. His first business was a T-shirt company followed by the very successful graphic design and branding company, Creative Link, which he had for 10 years, and then the marketing and consulting company, Sales by 5. Now, his focus is on furniture, which even surprises him a bit because the creation of Office Furniture Liquidations happened by accident.
Darmstetter had been running the thriving Sales by 5 for 12 years when the Great Recession of 2008 wreaked havoc on the economy. During this same period, he experienced personal tragedy when his close business assistant died unexpectedly. So, he decided he would close his office and work from home. He began selling his furniture to the other office suites in the building and was having so much fun doing it when he realized he was on to something good.
“I liked it so much I decided to build it into a business,” Darmstetter said. “What stimulated it was the downturn from the recession. Offices in the building where I worked needed their furniture sold because commercial real estate was sitting on a lot of it, so I started selling for the tenants in the building and for others.”
Thus, Office Furniture Liquidations was born. Today, Office Furniture Liquidations, 6838 Bandera Road, continues to be ranked as one of the top office furniture stores in the industry, and Darmstetter is having a blast operating it. Just check out their Facebook page to see some of the fun and whimsical videos where the CEO talks about some of the great pieces for sale and why you should come check out the showroom.
“I didn’t model it after any business or research,” he said. “It’s 100 percent organic.”
A unique aspect about the company is what Darmstetter calls the “See, Feel and Touch Experience,” meaning you are welcome to pull out a chair from a desk, open your laptop, and sit for a bit to see how the furniture feels. “Our biggest competitor is online, but you can’t touch it,” he said. “The number one thing we hear from customers is they bought something online, and then they have a hard time returning it. We want you to see the furniture in person and touch it before you buy.”
Darmstetter explains that he acquires a lot of his used or scratch and dent furniture from distributors around the country. “A lot of manufacturers will have a damaged box. Imagine going to WalMart to buy a blender, and you might have a box that’s dented, but the product is perfect inside,” he said. “The distributor won’t open the box, so we buy it. We’re the only ones who do this. We love it because we might get two that have damaged boxes of the same thing or there might be a scratch, so well sell it for half the price.”
Aside from work, Darmstetter likes getting away to explore the mountains of Colorado or jet skiing at Horseshoe Bay at Lake LBJ and cooking Italian or fine American cuisine for himself and his son, who works for the company in between his classes at UTSA. His daughter is also an employee.
For as long as he can remember, Darmstetter knew he was meant to work for himself and be his own boss. As an adolescent, he was already exhibiting signs of a savvy business owner.
“We had a game room in our attic,” he recalls. “I used to charge the neighborhood kids to come play my pinball machines.”
For more information, visit www.officefurnituresa.com
