Successes bolstering industry's faith in Web
By Brian Carroll -- Furniture Today, September 23, 2001
BOSTON — BOSTON — A few true Internet success stories are beginning to emerge in the industry, signifying an evolution in how furniture companies are viewing the medium.
Once viewed primarily as a tool of destruction, disintermediation and going direct, the Internet is increasingly embraced by furniture retailers and manufacturers as an efficient, cost-effective way to reach consumers one at a time and as a powerful traffic builder for real-world stores.
At FurnitureFan, for example, recent manufacturers signing on to publish their product catalogs online and become a part of the Web site's furniture community include Drexel Heritage, Stanley, Sealy, Lexington, Action Lane and Berkline. About 1,600 retailers have signed on, and several new features are putting unprecedented amounts of intelligence on what consumers are looking for into the hands of retail and manufacturing executives.
A new measurement tool quantifies and classifies what people are shopping for based on what they click on. The first week the data was available in August, consumers clicked on 211,000 thumbnail product images to solicit larger images — a number so high it shocked FurnitureFan executives.
Based on the first week's data, bedroom was the top product category by a wide margin. Company Chairman Mitch Russo said the newly detailed breakdown of shopping information should prove valuable.
"How would you like to know what the most popular item in your line was online among consumers looking specifically for the categories you make? What days do people shop for beds? It's like the sunlight has broken through the clouds," said Russo.
He and Gary Chase, FurnitureFan's founder and president, say that the Internet is gaining credibility as a facilitator and marketing tool. At least in furniture, that credibility was slow to develop.
"It took a while for (major manufacturers) to find out who was going to remain, whose model was viable, and who wasn't an e-tailer," Chase said.
Stanley, for instance, has begun recommending that its retailers sign up for a Web presence at FurnitureFan.com. Two other big producers have made FurnitureFan eligible for its cooperative advertising program, though neither wants to go on record yet.
The co-op dollars "say there are some companies that understand that we're about advertising and marketing," Chase said. "They want their stores marketing and branding and using us as a tool."
Bill Sibbick, Stanley's senior vice president of sales, said he's glad the Internet hysteria, both positive and negative, largely is behind the industry.
"Getting involved was the right thing to do and the prudent thing to do," he said. "I can't give you any numbers as to how it's helped our business, and a lot of people are too concerned with being able to quantify that before deciding (to establish an Internet presence), but we're getting leads."
Internet marketing for the furniture industry still is in the early stages, Sibbick said.
But at least FurnitureFan is beginning to provide some basic site visitor and use statistics.
The mostly independent stores that make up the approximately 1,600 retail outlets subscribing to FurnitureFan are beginning to see Internet-driven traffic in their physical stores, according to Russo. E-mail marketing campaigns and a new couponing system are methods of tracking the increases.
A new feature on lets retailers add a pop-up coupon window to their site within FurnitureFan and/or an independent store site. Some are using the feature to give discounts to consumers visiting the store during a specific period.
Liverpool, N.Y.-based retailer Raymour & Flanigan tested the concept with FurnitureFan, sending out 1,500 emails with hyperlinks to an online coupon. The campaign yielded at least $7,000 in sales, said Neil Rosenbaum, regional sales manager for the store chain and an architect of its e-commerce operation.
"It matched what we generally get with direct mail pieces, but we need to do a series to really find out," Rosenbaum said, adding that Raymour has plans for a sustained campaign. "We're talking about making (e-mail marketing) part of our total marketing plan. A one-time mailing isn't as effective as when you build on it and people learn to expect it."
Unlike direct mail campaigns, which are successful if they generate a 3% response rate, Russo said the e-mail campaign had an "open rate" north of 30%, with more than three of 10 consumers opening the e-mail and presumably reading its content.
"I see enormous growth in e-mail campaigns," Russo said.
One program on hold at FurnitureFan is the addition of kiosks in stores. The kiosk vendor, NetKey, is suffering in the down economy like most everyone else, Russo said, so they simply don't have the resources to dedicate to the sales in furniture.
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