Futons on the Net
A look at Futon Furniture Web Sites

Like everything on the world wide web, the cyber futon business is exploding, climbing upward, upward, upward. If you haven’t tried it already, see what comes up when you look for “futon” at your favorite search engine. When this was written in late January 2000, we found 128 sites at Yahoo and 245 at AOL Search. What numbers would you get now? Go see for yourself. The number you find today will be higher, probably much higher, just two months later.

 

Gary Chase of www.furniturechannel.com

David Daniel launched his company, Quality Design, and his site, www.futon-covers.com, at the same time in October 1999. “My goal was to make $2,000 profit per month,” said Daniel. “Well, in the first month I made $3500 profit, the second month $4400, then $5800, and it keeps on going up.”

“I never knew what a futon was until I worked here,” said Daniel, referring to Sleep Zone, a bricks and mortar retailer, in Johnson City, TN. Daniel, twenty-five, has worked in the store two years.

“Mark, the owner of Sleep Zone, has been very supportive. He’s got his own site selling airbeds, and he hosts my site,” said Daniel. “The idea of selling futons or covers on the internet intrigued me. I researched it on-line and jumped in head first. I lined up suppliers, bought Microsoft Front Page, put the whole thing together myself, didn’t pay a dime, and here I am. I show about a hundred premium covers and a dozen solids on my site.”

Bryce Nord started his web site, www.mrfuton.com, at about the same time, but he had a different objective in mind. “I set out to provide an on-line brochure to support my store,” he explained. Nord owns Futon Furniture & More in Annapolis, MD. “I’m getting fifty hits a day, and I can’t imagine getting fifty visitors to my showroom every day.”

 

David Daniel of www.futon-covers.com

At present, Nord has no intention of selling on-line. “Futons aren’t packed for individual shipment,” he said. “The odds are that the customer will end up receiving a box of sticks. Some customers will buy on-line, but that’s a small percentage. Most people want to see it and feel it and test it. I encourage on-line shoppers to buy locally. It’s your money, and I think it’s best spent where you live.”

John Reynolds agrees. Www.ntxmattressfuton.com is the web site for his store, Texas Mattress & Futon, in Arlington, TX. “We sell in the local area, and that’s it,” he said. “It’s not really practical to go further. We’ve sold a few covers, and frames a little bit in-state where I know what it costs. I get e-mail from Florida and New England begging me to sell them something. But with three hundred dollars shipping cost, it’d be suicide for me to do it.”

Jeff Ainsworth of J&M Futon in Greenfield, MA, has found a way to ship long distances. Everything he shows on his web site, www.bigfuton.com, is UPS-able. “My web site mirrors my retail store,” he said. “Customers nearby can see what we sell, but the web also broadens our geographical reach. We can ship anywhere in the U.S.”

At The Futon Shop in California, Suzanne Diamond reports that their web site, www.thefutonshop.com, is doing an equally good job of driving local business to their eighteen stores and creating new business nationally.

“We started with it three years ago, and now we’re doing $60,000 to $90,000 on-ine,” said Diamond. “Half of that is local. They order on-line and pick up at a store. The other half are shipped out. You wouldn’t believe how much we ship to the east coast!

“The key to our program is that we call each on-line customer from one of our stores, to confirm the order, answer questions, make sure they’re getting the product that suits them, and of course, to upsell them if possible. Our average internet sale is $700, which is better than we do in-store.”

At Zenkura in San Diego, CA, Bob Loop was slow to embrace the internet. He launched his site, www.zenkura.com, in March 1999. “I’m an old dog learning new tricks,” said Loop. “Two guys came in to buy a futon, and persuaded me to let them develop a site for me. Why not? I really didn’t think anybody would buy on-line from us, but I figured we’d give it a try.

“It’s the most rewarding phenomenon I’ve experienced in my twenty years in this business,” said Loop. “We’ve sold our futons to customers in Florida and New York, and I’ve met wonderful people. So far, it’s been a thoroughly delightful experience.

“At first, we didn’t get anywhere, nothing happened. Then I bought a banner on the Futon Life web site, and that got us rolling. When the first order came in, I thought someone was fooling me! From there we did more and more, expanded and upgraded, and now I’m stoked on it.”

Zenkura offers free shipping anywhere in the U.S. except Hawaii. As the manufacturer of both the futon mattress and frame, Loop was able to find a workable price point. “The trick was to avoid making the on-line price so low that my wholesale vendors would be upset, or so high that it might hurt local business at my own San Diego stores, by making us look too expensive. Nothing goes out by UPS. We superbox, palletize and wrap, and above and beyond that, if we make a mistake or damage something, I’m willing to eat it.”

Why do customers buy on-line?

“It’s not for bargains,” said Loop. “By the time you factor in shipping, most people will not save money buying on-line, not on a futon. These are people who simply don’t want to take the time to go out into the real world and go shopping.”

Allen Hyduck of Fantasy Futons in Mesa, AZ, agrees. They sell and ship across the country, to customers of their web site, www.futons.net. “On-line customers are time savers, or maybe they don’t like talking to people,” said owner Allen Hyduck.

“Sometimes it can be a time-saver, too. Maybe the wife does the shopping and has trouble dragging her husband back to take a look at what she picked out. Now he can see it on-line.”

“I think there’s a good reason we sell futons all over the country,” said Suzanne Diamond of The Futon Shop. “Many people live in smaller communities, and they’re just not finding ample selection. For them, it’s not about price, it’s about finding what they want.”

“There’s a difference between an on-line shopper and an on-line buyer,” said Pat Dortch of Beyond Futons in Charlotte, NC, www.beyondfutons.com. “If they find what they want at the site of a local retailer, that’s where most people will buy.

“Initially, our intent with the site was to allow someone an hour away to pre-shop us. Many of our customers surf the net for futons. They come in here talking price, but most of them buy from us because we’re local, they’ve already done their shopping at home, and they know exactly what they are getting.”

“People will call me from their offices with questions, while they are looking at our site,” said Paul McNamara of Waterbed Gallery in Ottawa, Canada, www.waterbed-gallery.com. “They’ll walk into the store with print outs of our product photos. It’s like a silent salesman for the store.”

“We do it to give people an idea of what we have in our stores,” said Steve Wolf of Croydon Mattress Factory in the Philadelphia, PA area, www.croydonmattress.com. “Many people mention it, and we often see people coming in with pictures they’ve printed out from the site.”

You can see our store without leaving your house,” said Theodore Casparian of White Lotus Futon in Princeton, NJ, www.whitelotus.net. “Our goal on the web, however, is primarily to sell globally, and secondly to promote the store. People who find our site will see a product that can’t be found anywhere else. We’ve had significant sales that would not be made any other way, at a cost that is not that great.”

If you are not interested in selling beyond your local area, the internet may be a nuisance to you. “It never fails,” said Greg Bertholf of The Futon Company in Eynon, PA, www.thefutonco.com. “I’ve got a store full of customers, maybe I’m here by myself, and some guy calls from Arizona to talk about futons for a half hour. He saw our web site and he has questions. I’ll never sell anything to him, but there I am stuck on the phone and I run the risk of losing the customer in my store.”

“It does what it’s supposed to do,” said Jan Stone of Cottonwood Futons in Madison, WI, www.cottonwoodfutons.com. “We developed it for local area consumption and kept it frankly very simple. I was afraid I’d end up with another master to serve. Now, I must admit, I am thinking about upgrading it and expanding our geographic reach.”

“I was one of the first futon stores on the internet, and I’ve got one of the lousiest sites imaginable,” said Oubay Chebib of Fabulous Futon Factory in Winnipeg, Canada, www.futon.mb.ca. “We had no pictures, no text, no nothing. Despite that, we’ve been selling a fair amount of product, especially into the U.S.

“I speak to each customer on the phone. Actually, that’s the only way they can get any information, because there’s nothing on the site. Boy, have they given me grief about how terrible my site is! Well, our new site is ready to go, and I think it’ll smoke anybody else out there. I want to see eighteen to twenty three percent of my business coming from the web.”

Chebib is using an outside consultant to develop his new site. Most of the retailers in this story developed their sites informally. Typically, the sites were originally designed by customers, relatives, or staffers. Do-it-yourself software is available. A few used professional site designers or ad agencies. Also, we’ve identified two services that specialize in creating futon sites (see related story).

So, is a web site a worthwhile venture for every futon retailer?

“I’m shocked that all of my competitors are not already on-line now,” said Paul McNamara of Waterbed Gallery. “They don’t understand that a futon buyer is typically an on-line kind of person.”

“It’s the least hassle of any advertising we do,” said Steve Wolf of Croydon Mattress Factory. “If you want to change it, it’s done within hours. No lead times like in our other advertising.”

“The web is a very important part of the future,” said Suzanne Diamond of The Futon Shop. “Customers in remote areas are now tied into Planet Earth. They have access to us, and we have access to them. Bricks and mortar retailing will still be the most important thing to us, but I honestly don’t think you can be successful without a web site. Not any more.”

“By all means, do it, everybody in futons should get a web site,” said Allen Hyduck of Fantasy Futons. “Even if it’s just a simple page that says ‘here we are, come see our store.’ Why not?”

Your Futon Hits Parade

While you’re on-line, take a look at these sites too:

www.futon.org This is the consumer site of the Futon Association, and it gets about 5,500 unique hits per month, mostly from the general public looking for futons. Even if you don’t have a web site of your own, buyers can find your store on the web at this site.

The listing costs $25 annually, extra for additional locations. The service is only available to FAI members. Membership dues are $125 per year for retailers. The listing includes your store name, address, phone, and street map. If you have a site, your listing includes a hyperlink at no extra charge. Details are available at the Futon Association members’ site, www.futon.org, or by calling 800-327-3262.

www.futonlife.com This site is a service of Futon Life, and it gets about 7,000 unique hits per month. This is another site that will enable you to be listed on the web. Customers find you by specifying a zip code or state. Your listing here is free. All you need to do is fill out an on-line registration form.

You can get higher profile on the site for a small fee. For $10 a month, you can get a textual listing with a hyperlink to your own site. For $20 a month, you’ll be listed with sites that sell on-line, also with a hyperlink to your site. Banners are also available.

If you don’t have a web site, futonlife.com can also create and host a web page for you. Details are available at the site or by calling 401-351-0787.

www.furniturechannel.com This site is for local retailers who want to compete against the “dot.com” retailers, and it gets about 50,000 hits per month. It combines local furniture retailers with on-line catalogs of manufacturers. President Gary Chase is a long-time futon marketer, and futons are among the products featured at this site.

“We’re the FTD of the furniture industry,” said Chase. “The local retailer can sell on-line without worrying about logistics, because all deliveries are local.”

Your monthly hosting fee of $49 includes listing and web site creation. There is also a small commission for on-line sales. Customers find you by specifying a state or product line. Details are available at the site or by calling 800-826-8868. FL