Introducing FurnitureFan.com™ Driving Shoppers to Stores

Furniture World Magazine

FurnitureChannel.com, completed its transformation to a marketing services company, by changing its name to FurnitureFan.com. The company, which began as an e-commerce furniture reseller in 1999, dropped direct selling in March to focus on driving customers into retail stores. FurnitureFan.com is an Internet site, which displays furniture manufacturers' catalogs in local retailers' showrooms. The site, with a search engine function, enables visitors to find furniture and then directs them to a local retailer for purchase completion. "Over the last year and a half, we have successfully aligned with retailers and manufacturers as their Internet marketing-services company. Our strategy allows manufacturers to gain additional exposure for their products through their existing dealer base, without creating channel conflict," explains Mitchell Russo, Chief Executive Officer of FurnitureFan.com. "We also build database-driven, interactive web sites for our retail partners for a tiny fraction of the cost of building their own site. Each site includes an interactive catalog, store home page, and detailed map with driving directions, along with store hours and store branding. These site elements, along with a store locator system, provide consumers with the convenience of narrowing the search for furniture online, before going to local stores. Local retailers are an important part of the equation because furniture buyers, who are predominantly women, wish to experience the "look and feel" of furniture before purchase. We have finally delivered a furniture search engine, which has never really existed on the Internet before," concluded Russo. The name change, to FurnitureFan.com, which is meant to evoke the "enthusiast" meaning of the word "fan", represents the realignment of the marketing plan directly to the needs of shoppers. With the goal of creating "furniture fans," the intense interest Internet shoppers have for furniture and home furnishing products is captured. Retailers benefit from increased site traffic, and ultimately, from higher foot traffic as well. With the company's site traffic growing weekly, FurnitureFan.com also has fourth quarter plans to invest in both online and offline advertising programs. About FurnitureFan.com: FurnitureFan.com is a privately held corporation, formed in 1999 as FurnitureChannel.com. Founded by furniture industry veteran and president, Gary Chase, upper management is comprised of experienced people from the furniture, computer and consumer marketing industries. FurnitureFan.com specializes in the development and marketing of furniture-related Internet application services. FurnitureFan.com is the also country's largest online directory of furniture stores.