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Milan Direct is an Australian online retailer of furniture and home-wares with operations in Australia, UK and Europe. The company is recognized as one of the market leaders in the online household furniture and has been discussed in national business publications that include Power Retail, Smart Company, and BRW (magazine).

History
Milan Direct was founded in 2006 by Dean Ramler and Ruslan Kogan. Both men nurtured the desire to sell furniture online. For over 50 years, Ramler’s family has worked in the furniture industry, and there’s nothing Dean Ramler would prefer to be doing other than following the business pattern of the family. He decided to co-found the company with his high school friend Ruslan Kogan. The pair pioneered and funded the online furniture market in late 2006.

So far, the company has earned recognitions From BRW in 2010, 2011 and 2012. It also bagged business awards from Australian Customer Service in 2009 and Smart Company in 2012.

Products and services
Milan Direct offers home furniture, office furniture, outdoor furniture, kids furniture, Home-wares and camping products online. The company supplied furniture for the 2012 London Olympics and also did same for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Controversy with the design community
Milan Direct has been called out by some furniture designers for being one of the largest retailers of foreign manufactured reproduction furniture, including replicas of famous designs from the mid-twentieth century, as well some as recent designs from active designers. The designers have claimed that the current Australian Intellectual Property laws allowing for the sale of reproductions of unregistered designs, hinders the local design industry.

As a result of a social media post, Milan Direct voluntarily ceased production of a table after it was notified through Facebook that the table was a locally designed but unregistered Australian original.

Milan Direct now works with Australian furniture designers to help bring their designs to a wider market through its website, and sells hundreds of Australian designed and made products.