Daily News Archive
Brought to you by Home Furnishings Business
April 18,
2012 by in UnCategorized 
By Home Furnishings Business in Delivery on April 19, 2012
Furniture and appliance delivery software vendor DispatchTrack has added a new feature, Automated Pre-Call.
The new feature allows route planners to start automated calls to all customers on a route with the click of a button. The system then delivers a customized message to the customer and return back detailed status of the call.
In a delivery organization, getting schedule confirmation from customers is very important in order to avoid wasted trips, but making these calls manually is tedious and time consuming. With this Automated Pre-Call ability, route planners can get this confirmation very quickly and accurately for all deliveries on all of their routes.
"The Automated Pre-Call feature has been a great benefit to us here at Turner's Furniture," said Turner's Fine Furniture Delivery Administrator Wade Young. "A job that used to take two people over an hour is now taking about a quarter of that time. We find that we can take longer to get the delivery day perfectly routed before we call our customers as we are no longer concerned with how much overtime will be used to make the calls. I highly recommend this feature."
DispatchTrack is designed to manage furniture and appliance delivery and technician support operations. It utilizes an Android mobile platform for people in the field and a Web-based application for office managers to oversee field operations. Key features include GPS tracking, optimized routing and time window calculations. It also can capture job pictures, job notes and customer signatures in real time, and has a delivery status tracking widget.
"In a delivery logistics organization there are so many details that the dispatchers and route planners need to think about," said Satish Natarajan, CEO of DispatchTrack. "Our goal is to help them with tools that will allow them to plan and monitor very efficiently and hence help you to provide better customer service."
The software integrates with most existing point-of-sale systems, including Tyler Soft, Red Prairie, ProfitSystems, Storis, Furniture Wizard, FurnServ and FROG. DispatchTrack partners with National Home Furnishings Association, Nationwide Marketing Group, Furniture First and Western Home Furnishings Association.
April 17,
2012 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on April 18, 2012
St. Paul, Minn., furniture retailer Traditions Classic Home Furnishings will celebrate 25 years in business on May 19.
Traditions' St. Paul and Minneapolis stores will mark the occasion with cake and champagne.
One of the premiere retailers in the Twin Cities forfine furnishings, whimsical accessories and exceptional interior design, Traditions will celebrate its 25th anniversary with cake and champagne at its Minneapolis and St. Paul stores on Saturday, May 19.
Mike and Suzanne Schumann founded Traditions in 1987 on the corner of Selby and Dale in St. Paul, helping to fuel the resurgence of Selby Avenue as a key element in St. Paul's historic Ramsey Hill neighborhood. In 1991, Traditions moved to its current location on Grand Avenue. Ten years later, Traditions opened a Minneapolis store to serve its growing customer base in Edina, Kenwood, and the western Twin Cities suburbs.
In 2002 Traditions opened a store in Naples, Fla., to provide its unique sense of style and interior design expertise to a rapidly growing Midwest customer base with winter homes in Southwest Florida.
Traditions Classic Home Furnishings offers classic furniture from design-oriented sources such as Ralph Lauren, Baker, and Theodore Alexander.
April 17,
2012 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Community/Charitable Support on April 18, 2012
Bob's Discount Furniture will donate $45,000 in gift cards in a new alliance with Make-A-Wish to help children with life-threatening medical conditions.
The sponsorship kicks off this month, and will help grant wishes to children in all nine states where Bob's Discount Furniture does business.
"We're excited about this new relationship with Make-A-Wish and look forward to helping children all along the East Coast in 2012," said Karen Donlin, regional vice-president at Bob's Discount Furniture, Manchester, Conn. "We have Bonnie DiCristofaro, one of our talented interior designers, dedicated to this Make-A-Wish program. She will help make it a smooth, enjoyable process for the children and their families from start to finish."
Bob's Discount Furniture also will sponsor "An Evening of Wishes Gala," a Make-A-Wish Connecticut fundraising event to be held this Saturday at the Mohegan Sun Casino; and has donated a living room set to the event's silent auction.
"Make-A-Wish sponsors like Bob's Discount Furniture are essential to fulfilling our wish-granting mission," said David A. Williams, president and chief executive officer of
Make-A-Wish America. "This new alliance will help create wish experiences that make life better for wish kids, families, and communities."
Bob's Discount Furniture made its first gift card donation to Make-A-Wish in 2010, when an 11-year-old boy named Angel had his wish come true. He wanted a bedroom makeover and visited Bob's Discount Furniture in Manchester, Conn., where he picked out a dresser, mirror, bed, chest and a recliner. When the makeover was complete, Angel felt like he was living in a hotel suite and invited his friends over to celebrate in his new room.
"Bob's is dedicated to supporting the communities where our stores are located, and we hope to bring some hope, strength and joy to Make-A-Wish children in 2012," said Cathy Poulin, public relations director at Bob's Discount Furniture.
Bob's Discount Furniture has 43 stores in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Maryland and Virginia. Each year,
Bob's Outreach programs support hundreds of schools and nonprofit organizations with sponsorships and charitable contributions.
April 17,
2012 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Retail Technology on April 18, 2012
A number of High Point Furniture Market exhibitors will debut the new version of RepZio's mobile app for Apple devices at the upcoming show.
RepZio provides patent-pending iPad, iPhone and iPod applications for mobile product presentations and sales. Version 3.0 of its mobile app offers many functional enhancements.
"Our main focus is always to help give the reps what they need to sell more efficiently and simultaneously, it is also fun to make the entire system run better," said Max Fraser, CTO of RepZio, North Palm Beach, Fla. "Our data sync now runs ten times faster, images download five times more quickly and these updates no longer impede use of the app itself."
Along with optimizing the app use on the three Apple device platforms (iPhone, iPad, iTouch), users now have many additional options for displaying product images and information. Several new methods for editing order information are offered including updating line item quantities and pricing on the fly. Enhanced searching, sorting, discounting and printing capability also have been added.
"One real challenge was in reprogramming the way the device camera can be used to scan trade show barcodes," said Fraser. "Version 3.0 provides a truly stable and fast bar code scanner. It is really neat to take an iPhone, run the app, and tear through a showroom scanning an order."
The ability to support multi-line sales groups and multiple vendors has also been incorporated, providing RepZio clients with some of the most diverse options in the industry, with different operating series and price tiers available. The Entrepreneur version is perfect for independent reps alone, or for companies who wish to simply use the app for trade show processing. The Enterprise version provides a fully featured app for sales rep groups, manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors. Customization of a branded app is also offered for clients who desire to have their brand highlighted in the App Store.
RepZio customers using the new app during High Point Market include Nourison, Curations Limited, Loloi, Guildmaster, Martin Furniture, Decor-Rest, IMAX, Rosenbaum Fine Art, Control Brand, Craftmaster, Fine Art Lamps and others. In support of its Accessories Resource Team sponsorship, RepZio offers ART members special pricing on app setup.
April 17,
2012 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Retail Technology on April 18, 2012
SuperCat Solutions and third-party furniture logistics company Ampac Forwarding have teamed to provide up-to-date inventory information for the eCat iPad sales app.
Ampac provides warehousing, inventory management, order fulfillment and invoicing for home furnishings.
"We've made it very easy for companies that outsource their logistics and warehousing to third party providers like Ampac to automatically maintain accurate inventory and product information in eCat," said Steve Thrasher, president of SuperCat Solutions, Wilson, N.C. "Companies should focus on selling, not on worrying about the details of data maintenance."
The Ampac inventory control system automatically uploads current inventory levels of each product directly into the e-Cat system on a set schedule, as needed.
"Our customers who use eCat, like Somerset Bay and Alden Parkes, now have quick and easy access to inventory information, so their staff and sales reps don't need to continually contact us just to get inventory levels," says Kregg Kinnear, owner and president of Ampac Forwarding, High Point. "This enables companies that rely on Ampac for logistics services to quickly answer their customers questions on the spot."
With eCat, sales reps can increase sales by focusing sales presentations on available items, increasing inventory turns, decreasing orphaned stock, and decreasing calls to customer service from reps inquiring about what options are available for immediate shipment.
"We are extremely excited about this new program," says Lynne McArdle, president of high-end case goods, upholstery, and accessories company, Alden Parkes. "eCat is very fast and easy to use. A great bonus is that it enables our sales reps and customers to accurately match our many finish and fabric options with the correct products, eliminating order entry errors. eCat also makes it easy to see the quantities of each item that are available in various combinations of finish and fabric choices in Ampac's warehouse. We expect this to have a very positive impact on our customer service and inventory turns."
"An invaluable benefit is that customers are more likely to order if they are able to receive merchandise right away," Kinnear said. "With lead times for imported items as long as four months, when a sales rep is meeting with a prospect and knows which items are in stock and ready to ship, it is much easier to close the sale."