Jordan's Furniture adds room planner to Web site
By Brian Carroll -- Furniture Today, March 9, 2003
Avon, Mass. — A relative latecomer in embracing the Web as a way to reach consumers, Jordan's Furniture is upping the ante by adding a customized room-planning software tool to www.jordans.com.
Salem, N.H.-based Hookumu developed the software, which allows customers to design, save and e-mail room plans, including dimensions and furniture placement. An "analyzer" feature suggests alternate configurations.
"It will give our salespeople a real advantage," said Josh Tatelman, director of merchandising for the four-store chain, a major furniture retailer in metro Boston and beyond. "It's a lot better than scribbling out the plans on a piece of paper, which is the way we do it now."
Jordans.com is not an e-commerce site; the retailer sells only through its stores.
"We want to get people into our stores to experience the store," Tatelman said. "We've put all our money into our stores so, naturally, that's where we want the customer to buy."
For its room planner, Jordan's wanted an easy-to-use tool, said Steve Street, president of Hookumu. The software requires only a Flash plug-in, which the last two versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator include, and not Shockwave or Java plug-ins.
"The most important feature is its collaboration component," Street said. "Customers can e-mail floor plans to friends and family and Jordan's design team. It's a way of continuing the conversation."
Jordan's sales associates will have the room planner available via Internet-connected computers and kiosks in the stores. Jordan's site has hundreds of photos and product specifications.
The foundation for the room planner is technology first developed for Furniture.com, where Street once was executive producer and director of technology. He said conversations about using the room planner have begun with a half-dozen other leading retailers.
Jordans.com went live in January 2002. Since then, traffic has steadily increased and e-mail communication has grown exponentially, Tatelman said.
"Has the Net increased our sales? Absolutely," he said, pointing to questions routinely asked and answered via the site, ongoing communication via e-mail between consumers and Jordan's salespeople, and the information people are getting before deciding which stores to visit.
The immediate goal is to get more product on the site, which now has about 35% of the mix represented. Tatelman wants that figure to reach 75% in the next year. Jordan's does its own product photography.
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