Furniture.com to Benefit From USgift.com's New Fulfillment Solution

Furniture World Magazine

USgift.com, an Internet wholesale distributor, announced an agreement with Furniture.com, a leading online retailer of furniture and home furnishings. The alliance is part of USgift.com's fulfillment service, which provides consumer delivery for online retailers and further guarantees the promise of rapid, accurate delivery. Beginning immediately, USgift.com will supply product and provide customer delivery for a portion of the home accessories featured on Furniture.com, including rugs, lighting, wall art, table top and linens. The relationship enables Furniture.com to expand its offering of home accessories, provide quicker customer delivery, improve efficiencies and reduce costs without the risk or expense of carrying inventory. "We're looking forward to our relationship with USgift.com as an important means of reaching two of Furniture.com's critical objectives -- continuing to improve the home furnishings shopping experience and building on the successes we've achieved in accelerating our path to profitability," said Carl Prindle, senior vice president, product development, Furniture.com. Furniture.com is a charter participant in USgift.com's new fulfillment service for online retailers, which delivers product directly to consumers from USgift.com's online wholesale supply of gift, garden and home decorative accessories. To help solve the product delivery challenges of online shopping, USgift.com's fulfillment service guarantees orders will be shipped according to the customer's delivery request within one to two business days of receipt of the order. USgift.com is able to offer a delivery solution to online retailers because of its recently announced, exclusive, multi-year contract with Ingram Fulfillment Partners, a division of Ingram Industries, the leading fulfillment and distribution services provider for the book industry. "As one of the fastest-growing, online wholesale distributors, we are pleased that Furniture.com, one of the leading online e-tailers in the home furnishings industry, has chosen to use our fulfillment solution for home accessories," said John Hayes, CEO and founder of USgift.com. "Furniture.com will directly benefit from the operational efficiencies and cost reductions, while their customers will appreciate the expanded product selection and fast delivery provided by our retail fulfillment service." Hayes notes that USgift.com plans to sign a number of additional online retailers by year's end. Online retail fulfillment services enable many of the suppliers that USgift.com works with to participate in Internet distribution for the first time, significantly expanding the selection of unique, high-quality products that can be offered by online retailers. In March, USgift.com launched its business-to-business Web site to sell gift, garden and home decorative accessory products to retailers. The site now features more than 195,000 products from more than 300 manufacturers and suppliers. Since March, more than 16,000 "bricks and mortar" retailers nationwide have registered to buy product via USgift.com. How USgift.com's Online Retail Fulfillment Solution Works Manufacturers and suppliers agree with USgift.com to place inventory at Ingram Fulfillment Partners' state-of-the-art distribution facility near Nashville, Tenn. Online retailers browse the inventory via USgift.com's online-retailer extranet, a Web-based electronic catalog, and create their own customized catalog of products to sell in their virtual stores. The extranet lets online retailers add or remove product quickly and easily from the site to respond to consumer buying patterns. When a customer places an order with an online retailer for USgift.com- supplied products, Ingram picks, packs and ships the items direct to the customer within one to two business days of USgift.com's receipt of the order. USgift.com provides customized packaging, product return processing, gift- wrapping and packaging inserts, including packing slips and labels that carry the online retailer's identification. Upon shipment of an order, USgift.com provides the online retailer with shipping and tracking information that may be uploaded on its site for customer access. USgift.com invoices the online retailer for products ordered and simultaneously pays the supplier for product shipped from the inventory distribution center. USgift.com offers: Fast consumer deliveries Single-unit delivery quantities Customized and branded packaging and box inserts Online order transmittal and invoicing Online shipment tracking EDI and XML compliance including messaging, labeling and timing Web-based electronic inventory catalog Returns processing Gift wrapping