About Patelai
Patelai makes small everyday goods and sells them in the quantities people actually use them in. 975 products across 9 categories, 830 of them sold as sets rather than singles.
The line on our packaging is "simple tools, thoughtful living", which is a large phrase for a dish brush. What it means in practice is narrower and more useful: the small things you use without thinking about them are worth getting right, and getting them right usually means having more than one.
The idea, stated plainly
One of a thing is a purchase you make twice. That is the whole of it, and it holds across a catalogue this wide because the objects share a property: they are cheap, they are small, and they are used up, lost or worn through on a predictable schedule.
A dish brush splays in six weeks. An interdental brush is meant to be replaced weekly. A party needs one favour per guest and one spare for the person who was not on the list. In every one of those cases the useful unit of purchase is not one, and the price per piece falls steeply once you accept that.
What this site is
This site is our catalogue. Every product has a page with its pack size, its price, its price per piece and whatever the specification states about it, and the journal works through the arithmetic that a product page alone does not answer. What we do not do here is take your money: the buy buttons hand off to the store where the purchase is completed, and payment, delivery and returns all happen there.
What we do differently
- The price per piece on every product page, calculated at the moment the page is built rather than stored.
- A planner on the front page that answers the question we get asked most, which is how many of something a given number of guests needs.
- A page on how it is made that explains what a food contact authorisation actually covers and what the small parts rule actually says.
- Customer ratings printed as they stand, including the mediocre ones.
- A plain gap wherever a specification does not state a figure, rather than a plausible guess.
What we will not claim
We do not invent a founding date, a factory or a team photograph, and that is why our team page describes roles rather than people. We do not use "medical grade", "hypoallergenic" or "eco friendly" as decoration. We do not claim anything we make treats or prevents a condition. And we say plainly, in more than one place, that a lot of what we sell consists of small parts and is not intended for young children.
How we keep the figures current is on how we update, and the catalogue itself is on the Patelai catalogue.