Creating a Following

Books and videos sell like hotcakes online. Naturally! Who needs to try on a videotape or make sure it comes in the right color? But buying furniture online is another story. What made Furniture.com CEO Andrew Brooks think anyone would pick out furniture without taking a real-life look? "The traditional brick and mortar environment hasn't been very good to furniture consumers," says Brooks. "The average consumer needs to go to five or six retail establishments. That potentially ruins five or six weekend days with kids in tow, trying to find the perfect piece. That is often a frustrating exercise. On Furniture.com, we make available over 50,000 items for consumers. We also offer free delivery and great value on the furniture you do buy through us."

Brooks' unlikely idea has turned into a growing success. And the company's rise is due to its solid business strategies built on that good idea. How does Furniture.com entice customers to visit, stay and buy? It's not magic that does the trick, it's building a better site.

Build Your Site Around Customer Needs

Don't just throw up a site and hope buyers come and spend. Instead, design a site around the way your customers want to shop. "With every single thing we do, we think of the impact it will have on consumers," Brooks says. "Examples of that include multiple ways to search. You can search on our site by room, by piece and by very specific criteria. For example if you need a sleep sofa in a certain fabric to be delivered within 4-6 weeks, you can use our furniture finder." Giving the customers what they want is part of Furniture.com's success story. "What sets our site apart is the extent to which we have identified real consumer needs," Brooks said. "We then found technology that can provide solutions as opposed to technology for technology's sake."

Motivate Them to Register

Convincing customers to register can ensure an ongoing relationship. The trick? Give customers a reason to take the time to register. Too many companies just create online registration and hope customers will use it. But Furniture.com knows web users need more enticement. They offer it in the form of discounts and other treats for registered users.

"Like many sites, having a customer visit once and engaging with the customer once is valuable," Brooks says. "But what we really intend to do is to build a long-term relationship with our customers. We need a means of continuing the dialogue with our customers. Every single week we're adding new products, new features, new functionality. We want a venue to be able to communicate with our customers." Significantly, Furniture.com won't e-mail anyone who doesn't voluntarily give up his or her address. "We do encourage customers who want to have an ongoing relationship with Furniture.com to register and give us their e-mail addresses," Brooks says. "That comes with certain monetary benefits. It also allows our customers to use certain of our functionalities. That includes saving their selections and using the room planner and so on and so forth."

Brooks says that businesses have to offer real value for registered customers or no one will bother. "Ultimately when a consumer registers, the consumer's aware that you will be providing them with offers. In exchange for that, the consumer's offering up their name and their contact address," Brooks says. "You should provide offers that don't have excessive numbers of exceptions. They should be open-ended in terms of timing and real. They should not be offers, which are replicated in numerous places and given to somebody, even if they were not to register. If you're real, if you're straight with your customers, they will reward you with loyalty." As the web matures, so does e-commerce. Customers don't want to search endlessly each time they buy. What they'd like is to form loyalty to companies that sell efficiently and cost-effectively. Make pleasing the customer your first priority and you'll find they return. "Focus relentlessly on the consumer," Brooks advises. "When people think of the .com world, they think immediately about the IPO and about the financial payoff. All too often the consumer is the last to receive the requisite focus. If you make serving the customer the organization's religion, ultimately your investors are brilliantly happy."