Office Environments capitalizes with Web site
Cleveland store finds Internet boosts tickets, expands reach
By Tom Edmonds -- Furniture Today, January 25, 2004
Cleveland — Cleveland– As the home office boom took place simultaneously with the Internet explosion of the mid-1990s, the two seemed to be made for each other. What better venue to sell desks and computer workstations than on the computer itself, some furniture folks asked.
As it happened, SOHO on the Internet has not turned out to be the slam-dunk that some had hoped, and many of the original e-commerce sites have long since faded to black while others chug along with more modest expectations.
Nonetheless, the combination of the Internet and SOHO furniture still seems to have more than a little potential, and it's instructive to see how some office furniture entrepreneurs are making the Internet work for them.
At Office Environments in Cleveland, for instance, a new Internet site is helping the small mid-market dealer expand its selling territory and shorten its selling cycle. The company's site, officebydesign.com, is not seen as an e-commerce site so much as a sales tool and a medium for spreading the company's name beyond the Cleveland market.
"It's kind of interesting to see the dynamics of how it's working," said Jack Roberts, president. "Transactional business does occur as we do get a few people who put chairs in shopping carts and make their purchases. The bigger thing, though, is that people have gone on our site, seen our expertise and asked us to help them out."
Thus, officebydesign.com has been a portal to some impressive new accounts with universities, museums, the federal government and others. "It's kind of all over the place. It's too soon to say how much it's bringing in, but we're looking at a substantial increase," Roberts said. "The big thing is the size of the orders has increased from $700 or $800 to $3,000 or $4,000 and above. We even had some $50,000 projects come in. That's where we see the big potential of this thing."
In 2003, about 30% of Roberts' business came from outside the Cleveland area, but this year, he can already see that growing to as much as 60% because of the extended marketing reach of the Internet and the larger tickets some of those projects bring in.
Officebydesign is not intended to be a self-service Internet site, although shoppers can do as much browsing and planning as they like. Roberts is convinced that SOHO customers want advice and expertise, and he has set his site up to be a consultative selling tool, with electronic brochures and planning templates.
With the Internet and e-mail, Office Environments salespeople can send out links to specific brochure pages that include fabric and finish samples. "It allows us to cut to the chase very quickly," Roberts said. "Selling office furniture really boils down to two things: what does it look like, and how much will it cost. With the immediacy of the Internet, we can get that information in front of people more quickly and efficiently than we ever could through the mail or the fax."
Roberts bought his domain name in 2000 and has been developing his site ever since. The current version, which went live late last year, is the closest realization yet of his first set of goals: "We wanted a better way of communicating with our clients, and we also wanted to open our market area to the entire country. So far, it's been very effective. The ability to show product in real time with our clientele on the phone has cut down the sales cycle and the cost of selling dramatically."
The site is also contributing to an increase in home office sales as Roberts says he's seeing "a higher sophistication level" among SOHO customers. "More people are planning their home offices as they would in an office building, and I think when people start searching for answers and for good information, some of them find us," he said.
Office Environments is a sales and marketing organization that outsources delivery and installation. Working with InstallNet and its 120 national affiliates, the company can confidently promise delivery dates in most major metropolitan areas.
"The Internet is going to be an important part of our business in the Ohio market and throughout the United States," Roberts said.•
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