Hooker Smoothing Way for Furniture Shoppers

May 10, 2016  by in Business Strategy, Industry   

The company’s own research, supported by historic industry research, reveals two major objections that stymie shoppers’ furniture purchase decisions: 1) Fear of making a decorating mistake; 2) The dilemma of disposing of old furniture to make way for the new.

In collaboration with its retailers and other partners, Hooker is providing furniture shoppers connections to free design consultation and a furniture consignment referral network through its website at hookerfurniture.com.

The Designer on Call program allows shoppers to connect with interior designers and decorators from key retailer's showrooms to receive up to an hour of free, no-obligation design assistance.  To connect, the consumer visits the Designer on Call landing page on the Hooker Furniture website and enters their zip code, then can view the designer's profile page to learn more about the designer and to contact them.

The NextLife Consignment Referral Network connects consumers to online and brick-and-mortar consignment companies to easily, safely and securely sell furniture they can no longer use. To start the process, the consumer visits the NextLife landing page and enters their zip code to view the stores nearest them from a network of over 50 high-end consignment stores in key markets. In addition, Hooker has partnered with Move Loot to cover all areas of the country where there are no participating stores. Move Loot is a fully online consignment operator allowing consumers to sell a piece of furniture to anyone within the continental U.S.

"Hooker Furniture believes that by offering non-traditional services directly from our highly-trafficked websites, we can assist consumers and retailers by using that traffic to generate significantly more connectivity than just a dealer locator can offer," said John Albanese, vice president of corporate marketing. "We also believe that, as a leading manufacturer, we have to constantly work on new and innovative ideas to assist in driving consumers directly to participating retailers in the fewest steps possible."

Since launching the programs on its website, Hooker Furniture has already had over 2,000 designer searches, and approximately 300 participating designers.

“We are hoping that more retailers will take advantage of this free way to advertise their design services via our heavy web traffic,” Albanese said.  “This offers the retailer an opportunity to expose their design staff to our large consumer traffic audience, and creates an opportunity for connectivity between the consumer and retailer.”

To be part of the free Designer on Call Network, retailers can call or email Matt Angle at 276.670.3229 or mangle@hookerfurniture.com.

The NextLife Consignment Referral Network also benefits retailers, because they have a network to which they can refer their customers who express concern about disposing of their old furniture easily, safely and securely. In addition, “Retailers can use these same services to liquidate their own overstocks, returns or other products. Move Loot allows them to offer these products nationwide, rather than just in their own markets,” Albanese said.