Temple & Webster

Temple & Webster is a members-only online shopping club, which offers curated collections of premium and designer brands for the home at significant discounts to recommended retail prices.

“We offer our members exclusive access to premium quality furniture, flooring, lighting, homewares, kitchenware, decor, art, linen, towels and more,” McWhinney says.

“We also feature handpicked curated collections from leading design commentators, interior designers, stylists and the designers themselves.”

Temple & Webster makes a point of sharing the story behind each brand and designer in a bid to take its members “behind the scenes” and offer more than just exclusive sales events.

McWhinney says he and Shanahan started the business out of personal desire but also in response to a clear market opportunity.

“We loved the way beautifully styled shots helped us visualise what might be possible in our own homes,” he says.

“Whilst the magazines provided the inspiration, they couldn’t help us make the dream a reality as it was too time-consuming to contact individual stockists and very few of them would ship directly anyway.

“We wanted to close the loop between the inspirational imagery, beautiful products with great stories and the ability to actually buy what we saw – without having to trek all over the city/state/country.

“We couldn’t find this in Australia, so Temple & Webster was launched to help more Australians create beautiful homes.”

The best part of starting the business?

“Building an amazingly talented and dedicated team of people to make the dream become a reality,” says McWhinney.