FurnitureDealer.net announced that its first ever “internet marketing boot camp” at the recent WHFA Home Furnishings Industry Conference in San Antonio, Texas was a great success. “Over 20 of our retail partners came in two days early to attend our boot camp”, stated Andy Bernstein, President and Founder of Furniture Dealer .net. “Our goal in getting these industry leaders and pioneers together was to discuss and share the emerging strategies and tactics necessary to compete in the internet based universe”, added Bernstein.
Many of the participants are in the Furniture Today Top 200 Retailers with sales ranging from $5MM to well over $100MM. The “boot camp” primarily focused on on-Line merchandising, marketing and sales strategies. The discussions centered on how retailers must focus their internet web based strategy and tools to engage, inform and motivate today’s “wired” customer, with the ultimate goal of creating a transaction at the local store level. “It’s not just a website anymore; it’s a focused integrated on-line strategy whose end result is to create more dialogue with the consumer, leads and sales for our local brick and mortar retailers, stated Bernstein”.
“The participation level was awesome” stated Dan Kennedy of Belfort Furniture. “Having a diverse group of successful retailers sharing strategies and success stories was extremely beneficial to all who participated. We plan to use much of what we learned in our 2011-2012 marketing initiatives”, added Kennedy.
“From a supplier level, I learned so much as it pertains to what we need to improve upon so that our retail partners can do more business”, stated Larry Furinani, SVP of Coaster Companies. “As a supplier we must be proactive with our retailer’s internet strategies and supply them with the resources they need to help them grow their business base. I learned a great deal over the 2 day conference which will definitely help Coaster to improve with our go to market strategy.