Why iFloor.com is going multi-channel
Though it has been only an online retailer until now, iFloor.com is going multi-channel. Since 2004, iFloor, No. 115 in the Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide to Retail Web Sites, has operated a distribution center and store in suburban Seattle.
Now the company is operating three stores, including two in Washington and another in Delaware, and just opened a fourth in Hayward, CA. Within several months, iFloor will add stores in Sacramento and San Diego. "IFloor.com has entered the California market in an area where we already have more than 40,000 existing customers,” says CEO Steve Simonson.
Within 18 months, iFloor expects to have a national network of 36 stores. “We plan to be in most of the major metropolitan markets very soon,” says Bryan Simpson, director of marketing. The company carries more than 60,000 flooring products in its online inventory such as hardwood floors, laminate flooring, bamboo flooring, cork flooring and area rugs.
The first store was opened more as a distribution center than as a retail outlet for customers in iFloor’s home town of Seattle to pick up their flooring orders. But once at the center customers expressed interest in seeing more merchandise, especially higher end products, and liked seeing an iFloor employee in person. “The addition of land-based stores enables us to expand upon these services by combining what we currently offer with local face-to-face service and inventory,” says Simonson.
To expedite the change from Internet pure play to multi-channel retailer, iFloor will use the web to drive offline sales by adding a store locater button to iFloor.com and introducing other promotional, merchandising and marketing initiatives. All of the company’s new bricks and mortar locations will be called iFloor. “We thought about a new name for the physical stores, but people already know the brand,” Simpson says.
Back...
