Special Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Becky Miller

American Furniture Alliance Website Offers Build-a-Futon Tool

When a manufacturing company makes futon frames, mattresses and covers and offers them in every combination imaginable, how can the company give its retailers images of all those combinations to use in selling?

American Furniture Alliance used to do it the old fashioned way – photograph updated product offerings as often as possible and supply the images to their retailers. But showing every option was impossible. Shooting 30 futons in all sizes (queen, full, chair) and ottomans, every wood and metal finish, plus covers would have taken far too much time, money and man hours.

“With all the options we offer and the pace of change in the industry, we needed a way to get the best and most comprehensive product information to our dealers fast,” said American Furniture Alliance Marketing Director Michael McCarthy.

Four years ago, a website development company pitched a better idea to American Furniture Alliance: why not develop an online feature that could depict every combination of frame style, size, finish and cover design possible?

The first iteration of the digital imaging tool allowed American Furniture Alliance clients to log in and “build” a futon combination to their specifications then generate low resolution images of the finished furniture. The second stage, just recently completed, offers the same powerful functionality but creates high resolution images which dealers, retailers and reps can download for use in advertisements and websites.

“I even utilize the tool myself,” said McCarthy, who uses the online resource to prepare and create the company’s ads.

American Furniture Alliance worked closely with its web company to render all the components for digital manipulation. The web designers even scanned swatches of the fabrics and created a way for the full repeat of the pattern to wrap the futons in the rendered images. It’s easy for American Furniture Alliance to add new product components at any time.

“Now when we add an option to an existing program or something new to the line we have a powerful tool in place to share the latest and greatest with all our dealers in real time,” McCarthy said.

The build-a-futon tool helps online retailers especially, since online customers want to be able to see exactly what a product will look like before they buy. McCarthy says that this tool is really helping American Furniture Alliance pick up more customers in the e-tail segment.

“This is a creative use of web technology that dealers can use with their customers at the point of sale. What better way to demonstrate functionality than allowing the consumer, through the dealer, to visualize any combination we offer,” he said.

The tool also assists brick and mortar retailers at the point of sale. Some retailers log in to the American Furniture Alliance website and walk a customer through choosing all the options before placing a custom order.

McCarthy said that the next stage in the process will be to make the tool available on CD for all retailers to use offline in their stores at special kiosks.

American Furniture Alliance sees sales of futons growing. “Manufacturers like ourselves are working to meet the demand, backed by the ability to offer advanced sales and marketing devices like our high res futon rendering,” McCarthy said. “Futon convertibles are losing the stereotypes of the past and now are being declared stylish, fashion forward and more durable than ever.”

 “We have always worked as a company to always be thinking ahead, adapt when needed, but always working toward innovation,” McCarthy said. “When we began changing our company’s name from Elite Products to American Furniture Alliance, our goal was to create a stronger identity that symbolized our company and its growth.  Behind this goal was the promise that we would continue to expand our growth, lead and innovate.  Release of this new high resolution rendering tool is tangible proof that we are standing behind this promise.” FLLS