The dealers' new 'Net work'

An acquintance, Doug Gregory, wrote an article in the Monday Morning Quarterback, a furniture industry publication, about how the contract furniture industry should embrace the web and get their aligned dealers involved more in the lead generation process, similar to how GM and Ford have done.

The article was based on this piece from the Grand Rapids Press. I find it fascinating that "West Michigan dealers say three in four customers already have researched cars online before they enter a showroom". That blows my mind.

More to the point, how many buyers have researched your products (our furniture, in my case) before ordering or interfacing with a sales rep. I'm staking money on 75%. It could be higher!

It fascinates me that this industry is so far behind in the 'web game' I can't count how many times I've been told that KI is doing so much more, so much better, on the Internet than every competitor out there. I fail to understand why this is??? We are the 6th in the industry, and spend next to nothing on the site. How is it that we've ended up in the 'leadership position?' I am making the prediction now, in case anyone in the contract furniture industry is listening, that KI will continue to lead in *intelligent* web based tools and lead generation for at least the next 2-3 years.

Further, we were finally recognized by BtoB Magazine as one of the top 100 NetMarketing B2B websites, along with the likes of Microsoft and IBM. Granted, we snuck in with a score of 88 (the minimum you could have to be on the board this year), it's no small feat to produce a site that is ranked in top 100 Business-to-Business sites in the US! I guess we are doing something right after all.

Dana--I did some research work for a big competitor of yours here in GR last year. Major channel conflict! "The dealers are king" is what the VP said. If you look at the dealers websites, there are more egos being stroked than products shown.

We are currently shopping for furniture here. My guess is that clients are more inclined to let a dealer lead them thru the multitude of products available.

How many different chairs do you sell? How can you easily distinguish which to select on the web? Lots of issues in using the web to sell furniture.

(And www.kimball.com is down right now.)

You should check out this furniture company for contemporary furniture. Their stuff is really cool.

i found http://www.bali-bintang-art-gallery.com

this is a great furniture site