Mega Group adding furniture to Canadian website

Will roll out French version for Quebec later

Michael Knell -- Furniture Today, July 19, 2010

Michael Borecky

BOUCHERVILLE, Quebec — Mega Group will add furniture to its Canadian website within 30 days and will roll out a French version for the Quebec market later this year, according to an official of the buying group.

More than 130 members have signed on with the site at BrandSource.ca since it went live a year ago, said Michael Borecky, director of BrandSource operations.

"The idea is to build brand name awareness so when the consumer thinks of furniture, mattresses and appliances they will think of BrandSource or find BrandSource on the Internet and then find their local store from there," said Borecky.

The Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based member-owned buying and marketing group acquired BrandSource Canada in late 2006, when it allied with the Anaheim, Calif.-based Associated Volume Buyers, the operators of BrandSource in the United States.

To date, the Canadian site has featured mainly major appliances and mattresses. It offers 3,500 SKUs in those categories and will expand to 5,500 over the next few months, Borecky said.

"The strategy from the beginning was to emulate the BrandSource U.S., which is extremely strong in appliances, while adding our strength in mattresses," he said.

Mega Group already lists mattresses and appliances on its Canadian website, BrandSource.ca, and will soon add furniture.

The site already has an icon for furniture, alerting consumers that the stores carry the category, but does not yet show individual products by style and price as it does with appliances and mattresses.

Developing a furniture line for the website has proven a complex task, Borecky said. Styles, colors, fabrics, finishes and regional variations in taste and price points have to be considered.

The 130 members who have joined the BrandSource program include all member stores in Mega's Countrywide and Multi Meubles retail systems. These merchants represent about C$375 million in annual sales.

BrandSource.ca has averaged between 20,000 and 25,000 unique visitors a month, Borecky said. While it is difficult to measure whether the Web visits have translated into store visits, he said about 15% of site visitors have used its store locator - a function that will be enhanced over the coming months.

"Feedback from our retailers has been very positive with numerous stories about sales that they would have never received without the BrandSource website. So we are all very pleased with the progress thus far," Borecky said.

"Our Web strategy is to drive traffic to the stores," he said. "We will add e-commerce capability in early 2011 for those stores that want that functionality."