Share this on

NHFA releases details on Web portal

Homefurnishings.com to be national marketing campaign

Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, April 15, 2009

HIGH POINT — The National Home Furnishings Assn. released details Tuesday on its upcoming Homefurnishings.com Web porta l and national marketing campaign, including a cost estimate for participating retailers.

NHFA Chairman Doug Kays, who has shepherded plans for the program for three years - including an earlier attempt at co-branding with HGTV - said Homefurnishings.com will be the industry's only comprehensive national marketing program.

Kays promised this one will be more successful at bringing the industry and consumers together in one place and driving traffic to stores and suppliers prepared to pay for the exposure.

"It's been tried before, but never with the power of something like the Web behind it," Kays said.

The program's three elements are:

National advertising in shelter and lifestyle publications and on consumer-oriented Web sites.
A Web portal with content on home furnishings styles, color trends and other design topics, along with links to micro-Web sites of participating retailers and suppliers.
A certified retailer program aimed at directing traffic to participating stores.

The cost to retailers will be on a per-store basis. NHFA estimates that a business doing $2 million in sales annually would pay $2,400 and $2,600 per store per year.

Kays said the cost is less than half what NHFA was asking under the proposed HGTV program, which didn't get off the ground. He said NHFA isn't asking retailers to increase their advertising budgets - just to reallocate spending for a program that will generate millions of impressions online, where today's consumer is more apt to start the furniture shopping process.

NHFA officially will begin pitching the program to retailers at the High Point Market in a series of seminars in the new Retailer Resource Center in Plaza Suites.

The portal will soft launch in October and include a national online consumer sweepstakes (expected to be repeated quarterly) where the winner will get $5,000 toward home furnishings through certified Homefurnishings.com retailers. The official launch will be in January. The NHFA expects to have an estimated annual budget of about $2 million to start, and projects it will grow to $8 million by 2012.

A link to a promotional video is available at homefurnishings.com.

Share this on

NHFA dealers up for new portal

Oct 12, 2009

National Home Furnishings Assn. to launch consumer Web portal

Mar 9, 2009

NHFA gears up for Oct. 15 launch of Homefurnishings.com

Oct 6, 2009

NHFA plans sessions on Web initiative

Aug 24, 2009

$20M in ads for industry

Aug 10, 2009

Also by this author

Also by Clint Engel

Featured Company

Surya

For more than 30 years, the name Surya has been synonymous with high quality, innovation and luxury. Our Fall 2009 collections are no exception. Our designers have masterfully created some of the most cutting edge and versatile pieces to date. Encompassing... more