Dear reader

In this month it's been 50 years since my father, Jorgen Risager, started DPH Trading. - That means it's the same year as the danish queen Magrethe II ascended the throne, as well as the legalization of free abortion in Denmark.

In 2022 we will celebrate our 50th year anniversary with a retrospect on the years that went by. You will receive speciel offers, hear about funny stories and facts, and we will reveal our plans for the future. And it all starts now!

There has always been a salesman in my father. As a child he breed rabbits and sold them, and as early as at 18 years old he bought an old dairy and started selling fruit and vegetables.

 

Unfortunately it didn't go that well for that business. The earnings didn't add up with the spending. My father never said no to a great deal and when it so happens to be about apples or bananas, and one buys 20 boxes but can only sell 8 before they started rotting, the earnings disappear.

So, in 1972, once my father had licked his wounds after his first attempted and failed business adventure with fruits and vegetables, and he once again felt the urge to trade, the goods became something entirely different. - He had the idea of specializing himself and trade with things that could be kept in storage for a long time. The choice ended on plates and the company was named Danish Plate Trading.

In the year of 1972, I was 6 years old and already had duties in the company. My father didn't have any employees in the beginning and was therefore not able to leave the store during daytime. This is why it became my task to go to the bank with the cash and checks of the day. And I was in trouble if I was late!

 

Afterwards I went home and collected packages to bring to the post office. - The vehicle that I often used was my pram which was filled to the brim with packages from time to time. I felt like a big girl when I went on my tasks, but also a bit embarrassed having to transport it in my pram.

 

When we had a day with good orders or great sales, I would get money to go to the candy store on my way home from the post office. Afterwards, when I got home, we would get cake and cordial. - It was amazing!!!

During a 10-year period, Jorgen had, just as he had with the apples and bananas, bought a massive amount of plates and other collectibles. The ones that there wasn’t room for in the store were stacked in the attic, but one day the wallpaper started to come off the wall, and yes, the ceiling simply wasn’t strong enough to carry the thousands of plates that were stacked up there. - The ceiling was literally starting to come down on our heads!

The hunt for a new property began and the choice ended up on a pretty amazing house in the northern part of Odense. In 1982 we made the move to Loekkegravene 49, Odense, Denmark, and we are still here today. 

Shortly after we moved to the big, new house, the prices on plates started to fall and the trading of plates was difficult to make a living by. - It was necessary to find something more to trade in and it ended up being Chinese lamps. - We imported old and new vases from China and had them converted into lamps. 

 

In 1984 my mother quit her job selling flowers to work at the company. This became the start of years selling lighting and lamps.

In 1986 I had no intention of continuing working at DPH Trading. After my high school diploma, I wanted to be a salesperson, and that I became. 

Two days after my last exam I started working at Blom & Sorensen,... however, that wasn’t a great match for me and I quit after a few months. So, because I was without a job, I started helping out at DPH Trading in a really busy period, and yes... I'm still here, many experiences richer...

Throughout the years we have bought and sold a lot of wonderful things. And just like my dad, I can have a difficult time saying no when it comes to buying goods ata  really cheap price. 

For example, in the spring of 2017, when we bought a giant residual stock in Sweden. A big collectibles seller closed down and we went there and found a giant storage filled with cardboard boxes. - Nobody knew what they contained, so we took a few samples and found a lot of plates and other stuff.

At first, we said no. We simply didn't have room for the thousands of goods, but once the seller started insisting on us bidding, we ended up buying it anyway. It turned out that there were over 140.000 items. - It took us half year to unpack it, and it filled 8 big containers. 

It seemed very unmanageable getting all the goods from the big buy in Sweden managed, but along the years I learned that there is only one way to such a task, and that is to take one thing (box) at the time. - Meanwhile, it has always been our strength that we have some good IT systems, and that everything is and will be registered in our storage system.

As a lot of you already know, we have a physical store in Lokkegravene, Odense, where we sell a lot of Lamp Shades and so much other stuff as well. However, it's via our websites www.dphtrading.dk, www.dphtrading.com, and www.dphtrading.de that most of our products are being sold today. 

 

In 2021 we have been working on a new website and we hope that we soon will be able to show it to you. But as you may know, there is always more work and new challenges when working with IT than expected. - So, you have to wait a bit more for the new website. You can however get at sneak peek at in, as well as our lovely store, in our brand-new video down below!