Product diversity counts in a recession–just ask Cymax Stores Inc., a niche web retailer of housewares, furniture, home furnishings and electronics.
With a portfolio of about 120 niche storefronts and a wide range of merchandise, Cymax, No. 247 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, was able to grow its web sales by 60% to $16 million in the fourth quarter of 2008 from $10 million in Q4 of 2007. For the year, Cymax also posted a healthy gain in revenue with 2008 web sales of $50 million, an increase of 53.9% from 2007 e-commerce revenue of $32.5 million.
It was a tough fourth quarter and holiday shopping season for many online retailers that sold big-ticket items such as furniture. But Cymax operates a diverse retailing business. The company specializes in building individual sites, each with its own web address, for niches like sofas at EverySofa.com, game tables at FoosballSelect.com and dining chairs at MoreDiningChairs.com.
It was product diversity and doing a better job with marketing, particularly with highly segmented weekly e-mail blasts, that helped Cymax grow its Q4 numbers, says Cymax CEO Arash Fasihi. “We did a better job with marketing and paid attention to the basics,” says Fasihi. “Our product diversity definitely helped and we didn’t have all of our eggs in just one basket.”
Cymax uses information about the products customers search for as a basis for developing new niche sites, which included the launch of about 30 microsites in 2008.
In recent years, Cymax had planned to add up to 200 microsites, but current economic conditions are prompting the company to scale back and look only at a few targeted niches.
Late in 2008 Cymax launched a new baby products store with an inventory of 3,000 products. This year Cymax will expand its line of baby products and add as many as 17,000 items. “We found this niche the way we do most others: our customers began asking for it,” says Fasihi.
Comments | 2 Responses
All, beware the Cymax business model. From my recent experience here is their business model. Cymax Charges a customer credit card. Cymax delays processing the merchandise order until the customer contacts Cymax to inquire as to the anticipated delivery. Cymax then processes the order for 50% of the merchandise and delays delivery claiming that they are waiting to be certain that 100% of the merchandise will be delivered. They delay delivery 3 times claiming that they need to make sure that all items are on their deiivery schedule. Cymax delivers on the 3rd scheduled delivery and then only delivers 50% of the items ordered and paid for. Only after deliverying 50% of the furniture do they tell you that not everything was loaded and that they will return in the morning with the balance of the merchandise. Obviously there is no additional delivery. They never ordered 100% of the merchandise. And now the rest of the charade begins....they claim that they need to investigate and will be back in 4-6 business days. They then claim that the merchandise was never shipped and they need to re-order. After another 4-6 days they never re-ordered. At the end of several 4-6 days of waiting, I request a cancellation. They need to investigate and will be back to me within 4-6 days. After several rounds of waiting, I place a cancellation on line - meanwhile they act apologetic and claim that they will cancel the transaction and refund me without penalty. Then they send a message that claims I will have to pay restocking and return shipping fees and have still not credited me for merchandise that I have not received. This absurd "looking into" exercise goes on for months - meanwhile they have my money and have failed to deliver or resolve the situation. When they finally issue an RMA to return the partial delivery, they give the customer 15 days [including weekends and holidays] to return in the original packing. Mind you they did not deliver with any boxes or packing - and will not accept returns without the original packaging. So essentially, they take customer funds and fail to deliver what was ordered. In my review of the company I have found that the treatment that I have received is customary.This retailer should be investigated - not congratulated.
Our customer placed an order online and her order was shipped with one of our reliable White Glove Service carriers. Firstly, we apologize on behalf of them for the delays in shipping and the 3 delivery attempts they made that were unsuccessful. Unfortunately in the shipping world inevitable delays and problematic issues do arise. We were notified by our customer that 2 of her 5 items ordered were not delivered. We understand (based on the customer’s response) that the delivery carrier advised her that they were trying to find all of her items, and delayed delivery until all items were found. Once they did finally arrive they did not arrive with all her items. Once we were notified of this, we contacted the manufacturer to attain the paperwork stating that all 5 pieces were sent from their warehouse. We contacted the carrier who advised that all 5 pieces were delivered and signed for. This caused a delay in locating all missing items. We then received an email from the shipping company advising that there were pieces missing. Retrieving the paperwork to make sense of where the missing furniture was; we agree untimely, but in this situation necessary. In these unfortunate cases, if an item is missing or damaged for a customer, our Replacement Policy states that we will replace it for the customer at our charge. As the customer did not want us to replace the missing items at our cost we needed to find alternate options for her outside of our Standard Return and Replacement Policy that was agreed to. We acknowledge that this experience was less than optimal for our customer and have fully rectified the situation by refunding her in full and have picked up the items she received.
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