Blueport’s New Platform … and How They Did It
In a significant move to reshape the e-commerce landscape for furniture retailers, Blueport Commerce has unveiled its new platform, Essentials. After three years of development and an investment of $36 million, Essentials is designed specifically for growth-oriented independent and regional furniture retailers, integrating advanced features that cater to the unique needs of the furniture industry.
A Technological Reset and Strategic Shift
CEO and founder Carl Prindle describes Essentials as both a technological reset and a strategic shift for Blueport. The platform, which has been internally referred to as “Blueport 2.0,” is a culmination of over two decades of experience in building e-commerce solutions for some of the largest names in furniture retail.
Blueport’s journey began by helping major retailers establish their online presence, starting with Furniture.com and evolving into fully branded websites. The company became renowned for its custom development capabilities, integrating complex Point of Sale (POS) systems, managing promotions, and addressing the operational challenges unique to the furniture sector.
Learning from Experience
Over the years, Blueport deepened its partnerships with top retailers, ultimately driving up to 27% of total revenue through online channels for some clients. This experience has been foundational in shaping the Essentials platform.
Prindle emphasizes the importance of understanding consumer behavior, noting that shoppers often transition between online and in-store experiences. “Our job became making sure that experience is consistent, compelling, and drives results for both the consumer and the retailer,” he states.
Democratizing E-commerce Solutions
Working exclusively with enterprise retailers highlighted two key realities for Blueport. First, there was a clear need to democratize access to enterprise-level capabilities for smaller retailers who lacked the resources of billion-dollar companies. Second, the aging technology of their original platform, built in the late 1990s and early 2000s, was becoming increasingly difficult to extend and adapt.
Prindle explains, “Retailers wanted to integrate tools from the outside world: marketing tools, social integrations, and more. Those older systems had a lot of baked-in furniture functionality, but they were closed and fragile.” This realization prompted Blueport to embark on a complete platform rebuild.
The Essentials Platform
Over a three-year period, Blueport invested nearly $36 million to develop a modern platform architecture using Google technologies and open application programming interfaces (APIs). This new architecture allows for easy integration with external applications, making it agile and scalable.
Essentials aims to fill a gap that has historically existed for retailers. Instead of forcing them to choose between outdated furniture-specific platforms and modern generic platforms designed for other industries, Essentials combines the best of both worlds. It starts with furniture-specific foundations, including:
- Integrated manufacturer catalogs
- Delivery logic
- Localized availability
- Enterprise resource planning synchronization
With Essentials, pricing, promotions, and inventory updates occur automatically between the website and the store. Retailers can launch with populated assortments, eliminating the need to manually build item data and imagery.
Addressing Operational Friction
Essentials also addresses operational friction often overlooked in e-commerce discussions. The platform includes integrated manufacturer product catalogs, allowing retailers to launch sites with pre-populated product data and imagery. Location-based availability and search-optimized product pages are designed to drive shoppers into nearby stores, while customers can convert store quotes to online orders, make payments on existing tickets, and track purchases across channels.
Checkout options are diverse, including multiple financing paths, protection plans, and flexible delivery choices. Prindle notes that these features reflect the reality of furniture retail, where logistics and payment terms often determine whether a shopper makes a purchase.
Empowering Retailers
One of the core philosophies behind Essentials is that retailers should have control over their online presentation. “Your website shouldn’t be a side project someone else runs,” Prindle asserts. “It’s your flagship store now. Almost every shopper starts there. If it doesn’t represent your brand at its best, you’re losing the customer before they walk in.”
This philosophy extends into a workflow called OneView, which is designed to eliminate friction between online research and showroom purchases. Shoppers can build a cart online, view financing and delivery options, and push the transaction directly into the store’s POS system.
Conclusion
Blueport Commerce’s Essentials platform represents a significant advancement in e-commerce solutions for the furniture industry. By combining decades of experience with modern technology, Blueport aims to empower independent and regional retailers, providing them with the tools necessary to thrive in a competitive market.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Essentials platform is a modern e-commerce solution designed specifically for independent and regional furniture retailers, integrating advanced features tailored to the unique needs of the furniture industry.
Blueport invested approximately $36 million over three years to develop the Essentials platform.
Features of the Essentials platform include integrated manufacturer catalogs, location-based availability, automatic pricing and inventory updates, and multiple checkout options, including financing and flexible delivery choices.
Note: This article provides an overview of Blueport’s new Essentials platform and its significance in the furniture retail industry.
