Furniture.com Announces Marketing Alliance With America Online. Furniture.com to be Anchor Tenant in Home and Garden Commerce Center

Furniture World Magazine

Furniture.com announced a marketing alliance with America Online, Inc. (NYSE: AOL) that will feature Furniture.com, a leading furniture and home furnishings e-tailer, as an Anchor Tenant in the Shop@AOL shopping area as well as on other AOL brands, including Shop@AOL.COM, Shop@CompuServe and Shop@Netscape. Under the agreement, Furniture.com will become an Anchor Tenant in the Home and Garden Commerce Center of Shop@AOL set for launch this Fall. AOL members can also find Furniture.com through Keyword: Furniturecom. Furniture.com will benefit from advertising and promotional opportunities across AOL brands. "As the world's leading interactive services company, we're dedicated to providing our members with the best stores and shopping online," said Greg Shove, AOL Vice President of Interactive Marketing. "We think Furniture.com will offer AOL and CompuServe members, and visitors to AOL.COM and Netcenter, a great online furniture shopping experience, with a large selection of furniture and furnishings online as well as a focus on personalization, information and customer service." "In the bricks and mortar world, furniture shopping is notoriously frustrating. It shouldn't be. We're introducing AOL's 17 million members to a whole new way to quickly and easily find exactly the furniture and accessories they're interested in. Creating your dream home should be fun and not a hassle," said Furniture.com Inc. CEO Andrew L. Brooks. "At Furniture.com, consumers create a personalized shopping experience that reflects their own styles and preferences - complete with the largest selection of home furnishings on the Internet, free Red Carpet Delivery and in-home set-up, live Design Consultant assistance, a unique personal shopper service and an unconditional customer satisfaction guarantee." "AOL is an ideal partner for Furniture.com. America Online's presence in American homes is widespread, and AOL provides one of the friendliest, easiest-to-use online experiences. Our marketing alliance with AOL reinforces our position as the e-commerce leader in the $178xbillion furniture and home furnishings industry," Brooks said. The AOL alliance is the most recent in an aggressive multi-million dollar strategic branding campaign that Furniture.com launched in June, he said. In that month, Furniture.com closed on $35 million in third-round financing, the majority of which is earmarked for brand-building initiatives and new strategic alliances. The company also introduced a national radio and newspaper advertising campaign titled "Love Your Room," which states "if a room is a place to love, then Furniture.com is the way to love it." "The furniture industry's own research shows that consumers are turned-off by the process of how they traditionally had to shop for furniture. Through AOL and our other marketing initiatives, we're introducing millions of consumers to the solution: Furniture.com, where you can create your own personalized, enjoyable, furniture shopping experience," Brooks said. About Furniture.com: Furniture.com, at http://www.furniture.com, is the e-commerce leader in the growing $178 billion U.S. furniture and home furnishings market. Furniture.com is revolutionizing the way consumers shop for furniture by delivering the world's best furniture shopping experience, where consumers create their own personal showroom by selecting their favorite items from the largest selection of furniture online. Furniture.com customizes the high-tech/high-touch experience with live expert Design Consultant assistance, a unique Personal Shopper service, free Red Carpet Delivery and in-home set-up and unconditional customer satisfaction guarantee. Furniture.com is an eMarketer Top 10 eBusiness Sites Online, and is a member of BBBOnline, TRUSTe, and VeriSign. Furniture.com is a registered trademark of Furniture.com Inc. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.