New Furniture.com team: 'It's a new day'
By Brian Carroll -- Furniture Today, April 14, 2002
WALTHAM, Mass. — The management team at the new Furniture.com experienced the meteoric rise and sudden fall of the old Furniture.com, and they say both they and the new company at that Web address are better for it.
"It's a new day," said Carl Prindle, president of the new Furniture.com, now owned by Resurgence Asset Management, the majority owner of retailers Levitz and Seaman's.
Prindle was senior vice president of product development at the old Furniture.com, responsible for the Web site and for direct marketing.
Other veterans are Dmitri Parfenov, chief technology officer, and Davis Remignanti, director of catalog operations. At the bankrupt Furniture.com, Parfenov was the lead site architect and Remignanti was responsible for image management. Remignanti will oversee the digitization, storage and management of product images at Furniture.com Inc., as well.
"We're pretty excited (about the new Furniture.com)," Prindle said. "It has many of the best aspects of what (the old) Furniture.com was trying to do."
By the time Furniture.com filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2000, it had piled up nearly 100 Better Business Bureau complaints in Boston alone. Prindle said the negative baggage associated with the previous company's closing and liquidation should not hamper the new entity.
"We spent a lot of effort after bankruptcy taking care of those issues," he said. "We gave customers the opportunity to get their money back. Going forward, there may be some residual skepticism.... We'll have to prove ourselves."
Prindle said one of the more exciting aspects of the new business model is its marriage to brick-and-mortar stores, a link the old Furniture.com was exploring just before it ran out of money. Besides giving consumers the chance to touch and feel potential purchases in real-world stores, the back-shop infrastructure will help Levitz, Seaman's and other retailers who join the new Furniture.com achieve vast new efficiencies, its backers say.
"We can use the information for the Web, sure, but the benefits to the stores, to their promotions, behind the scenes — that's a tremendous strength we bring," Prindle said.
Another contrast to the old Furniture.com is the new firm's backing, which comes from a single entity. Prindle puts Resurgence Asset's capital resources at $1 billion. The old Furniture.com had several backers, including CMGI and Bessemer Venture Partners, who gave up after a final $27 million cash infusion in June 2000.
The previous Furniture.com, which was based in Framingham, Mass., reached a peak of $20 million in quarterly sales in the first quarter of 2000. Annual sales in 1999 were $11 million.
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