-Furniture.com Launches Recommendation Center on behalf of Retail Partners

Furniture World Magazine

Furniture can be tricky to shop for. When shoppers are confronted with the inevitable question -- “What kind of furniture are you looking for?,” a common reply is “I’ll know it when I see it.” A new service from Furniture.com (www.furniture.com) helps answer this awkward question. Instead of asking shoppers to define their style, Furniture.com’s new Recommendation Center finds other shoppers with similar tastes and makes recommendations based on their favorite furniture. “Personal style defies mass categorization,” says Carl Prindle, President, Furniture.com. “One person’s modern can be another’s eclectic. When a consumer is decorating her home, she wants to shop a showroom filled with the furnishings that she’d select.” “The Furniture.com Recommendation Center (www.furniture.com/Common/Search/RecommendationCenter.asp) creates that showroom for her,” Prindle explains. “Every day, shoppers view over a million home décor items on Furniture.com. When a shopper requests a recommendation, we find a few customers that appear to share her tastes. If they’ve found items she hasn’t, we’ll show them to her. We’re betting that we’ll find a few new pieces that she’ll love,” he says. The Recommendation Center generates selections based on a complex, proprietary technology. Recommendations are made real-time, instantly adjusting to changes in tastes and the preferences of new shoppers. And the system is entirely private and secure - all recommendations are made based on aggregated data and no individual information about shoppers is disclosed. The results are uncanny, fun, and sometimes surprising. “My recommendations were a bit of a surprise,” admits Prindle. “I consider my style to be fairly modern, but one of my strongest recommendations was a traditional lamp. My initial reaction was to point out this mistake to our developers…but then I started looking more closely at the lamp. It’s in my study now.” Maximizing the Internet Opportunity for Retailers Furniture.com provides complete Internet solutions for furniture retailers, including exclusive regional rights to the Furniture.com Internet address, a turnkey, state-of-the-art e-commerce system, and a host of customer service and operations applications. All systems are maintained and continually enhanced by Furniture.com and integrate with retailers’ existing systems. The only cost to retailers is a commission on sales completed over the Internet. The Recommendation Center represents one of several ongoing enhancements to the Furniture.com system being made on behalf of the company’s retail partners. “Tens of millions of dollars and nearly half a million man hours have been invested in the Furniture.com system to date,” says Prindle. “The result is a sophisticated, mature system that’s extremely proficient at attracting, selling and servicing furniture customers for our retailers. It’s this robust foundation that allows us to bring our retailers advanced applications like the Recommendation Center.” “Our Furniture.com partnership has allowed us to capture the Internet opportunity with maximum return and minimum risk,” says Alan Rosenberg, President and CEO of Levitz Home Furnishings, Inc., a Furniture.com retail partner. “We get the benefits of furniture’s leading Internet address, a proven selling engine, and the back office and reporting systems that make the entire system work efficiently.” “We could be trying to build an Internet shopping cart ourselves,” he adds, “Instead, we’re focusing on our business while profiting from Furniture.com’s fully developed Internet system and cutting-edge tools like the Recommendation Center.” For more information about the advantages of partnering with Furniture.com, e-mail retailers@furniture.com. About Furniture.com: Furniture.com (www.furniture.com) offers consumers the best of both Internet and in-store shopping by merging the convenience, accessibility and ease of online shopping with the physical presence and proven infrastructure of the nation’s largest retail furniture chains. At Furniture.com, consumers quickly browse, compare and buy brand-name furniture and accessories, access decorating advice and product information, and utilize interactive design tools. To complete the experience, more than 130 stores provide local showrooms, customer service and fast, in-home delivery. Furniture.com, a privately-held company, backed by a private equity firm with over $1.0 billion in committed capital, is a member of BBBOnline, TRUSTe, and VeriSign.