FurnitureFind builds its location in cyberspace* By Rod Kackley MiBiz Network

Furniture World Magazine

Third quarter sales soared 110 percent at FurnitureFind Corp., compared to year ago figures. "Our sales were consistent with the strong growth we've seen since late 2001," said FurnitureFind President Pamela Durkin. " The trend toward higher ticket purchases shows increased consumer confidence and acceptance of the FurnitureFind value proposition. FurnitureFind has found its place in the dot-com world. Based in Buchanan, the company's online storefront, FurnitureFind.com, is one of America's largest furniture retailers in the e-catalog sales channel. FurnitureFind CEO Stephen Antisdel told MiBiz, "In December 2001 our order flow was up 85 percent over the previous year. That is when the trend began. Throughout 2002 we have been at a 100 percent order flow increase over 2001." So the Q3 report was not a surprise to Antisdel, unless it is viewed in the context of both the online and off-line retail worlds. Many of the top tier retail chains fell below Wall Street analysts' expectations in the third quarter. "And furniture retailing in particular has not been easy. In the context of retailing in general, our category has done well," said Antisdel. What is FurnitureFind doing right? Antisdel said it is not one or two things that are being done correctly; it is a combination of factors that have fueled FurnitureFind's double digit order flow and sales growth. He sees the online environment as a "place" in which "location, location, location" is every thing. Said Antisdel; "We have been very focused on building our online business and our visibility in this online world." If there is a fourth consideration that follows the "location" cliche, it is "metrics." Antisdel measures FurnitureFind's visibility in the cyberworld with the assistance of the (at no charge) www.Marketleap.com site. Among other things, it measures the popularity of Internet links and URLs. Antisdel regularly measures FurnitureFind's popularity and accessibility against the Web sites of industry giants like Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Ethan Allan among women. FurnitureFind beats them all with 770,000 links. (iVillage is in first place with more than 1 million inbound links.) But that could change next week. Keeping the FurnitureFind name on the first page of search engines requires constant maintenance. "It is a very dynamic number that changes all the time. This looks at a cross-section of search engines," said Antisdel. "Link popularity roughly translates into visibility across the Web. That is what allows the customer to find us. These links are the equivalent of little billboards in cyberspace." FurnitureFind would not be able to compete for the female customer against the Goliaths of the retail off-line world like Wal-Mart. But cyberspace is an entirely different environment. Those links that Antisdel lusts after - the little billboards they really are - and the visibility and customer contact they allow - are crucial to FurnitureFind.com. They are the company's marketing arm. As a result, an entire back office FurnitureFind department is devoted to the effort. "This is the guerilla marketing that you have to do when you don't have a million dollar ad budget," said Antisdel. "For the place we live – in the online world - these links are like the old Burma Shave signs that lined the roads of America." Visibility is only one arena of competition. Another is credibility. Many of FurnitureFind's opponents on the field of retail have faded away. Good news? Not entirely. That high casualty count has also increased the need to communicate with customers in the off-line world, with real, living, breathing human beings - and having a bricks-and-mortar storefront, as FurnitureFind does -doesn't hurt either. "If you don't have all the pieces - the visibility, the credibility, the selection, a good value, and the ability to build the customer's trust, along with the ability to get the product to the customer - you don't have a business," said Antisdel. "How is it we are growing at this pace? It is all of the above. And we are executing."