Smart Sales ... a higher level of sales analysis.

Why did we do it? Now?

Around the middle of 2008 we launched a new release of FurnishWEB that included dealer level sales analysis. Release 3.0.6 - Dealer Sales History and Analysis was a beta release for us and entered the world without much fanfare. However, it laid the groundwork for our recent Smart Sales functions.

Now, with Smart Sales, we have data accumulated and reportable for entire territories. This allows a sales rep or sales manager to compare year-over-year data for a territory ... product, dealer, and collection data aggregated, totaled, and sortable quickly and easily. There's even a series of PDF reports to snap shot the data for printable review.

Now a sales rep can quickly answer questions such as:

• Who are my dealers this year-to-date? Last year-to-date?
• Which of my dealers has the most product on open sales orders?
• What products or collections are the biggest sellers in my territory? For specific dealers?

The whole idea for this upgrade at this time is to support our clients, the sales reps, and the retailer buyers. In this contracting economy these tools can help stakeholders identify opportunities and move product through the sales channel.

How does it work?

The difference is easy to identify when you log into FurnishWEB as a sales rep, customer service, or sales manager. You'll see three quick charts on the overview page; Top Sellers, Top Collections, and Top Dealers. What a great way to get a feel for your territory in one glance!



For sales managers, the order summary, invoice summary, Smart Sales charts, and all the data visible on the Overview tab can be filtered by territory.

With our initial Release 3.0.6 - Dealer Sales History and Analysis, FurnishWEB provided a way to review sales history for one dealer. Now with new Smart Sales tab, sales reps and sales management can review entire territories included looking at a sortable report of all that territory's dealers. Select the type of report and press the Go! button. Then click on the column header such as YTD $ to resort the data. Or click the Print link to get a PDF report of the data.



Its really quite simple to operate, but quite powerful and empowering to the sales rep. Also remember that this data is built from aggregating invoice data. Many of our clients did not begin sending invoices to FurnishWEB until midway through 2008. For this reason, Last Year data may not reflect the entire year for each manufacturer.

Try out our new Smart Sales ... we think you'll like it.

What else is there?

We have included a couple of other items in this release.

First, you can now multi-select order status when entering criteria for order searches or order reports by CNTRL-Click for Windows and Apple-Click for Mac OS X.



Second, there are two new order statuses being used by some of our manufacturers; Scheduled and In-process.

And lastly, the cursor now defaults to the search box when first entering a new page or tab of FurnishWEB. Previously, the user needed to click into to the search box to begin typing.

Thank you all for your continued support of FurnishWEB. We're truly glad you're here.

FurnishWEB adds Smart Sales!

Internet Databases has introduced Smart Sales, a sales analysis tool that is fully integrated into FurnishWEB, its popular web-based customer service and sales force application for the home furnishings industry.

"Our clients have asked us to supply their sales representatives with improved research tools, making them more efficient and effective when communicating with customers," says Barry Welch, founder and president of Internet Databases. "The Smart Sales upgrade to FurnishWEB helps sales representatives identify product lines that facilitate their retail customers' success by allowing them to be more strategic and targeted with their offerings."

Smart Sales is a web-based analysis tool that provides a territory-wide view of sales history, by aggregating product, collections, retailers, finishes, and product types with current to previous year comparisons. It is an upgrade to retailer-level tools of the previous FurnishWEB release. The data is consolidated from actual shipment detail records and presented in an easy-to-use grid format. Sales representatives and sales management can perform research and print reports to analyze a territory, set goals and targets, and it can also be used to meet with a client. It includes dashboard graphs that give sales representatives valuable information on their top retailers, collections, and products at a glance and it is available globally, 24/7.

"Smart Sales is integrated within the other functions of FurnishWEB providing links to dealers, products and sales orders from within the analysis tool itself" says customer care manager Jilian Metz. "This allows sales representatives, customer service personnel, sales management, and retailers to all look at the same data in the same format. This truly streamlines sales channel communications within all business applications."

"The home furnishings industry is looking for ways to identify opportunity in their markets and sales channels," says Barry Welch, "and we are proud to to offer our clients' a tool to accomplish this." Smart Sales is available to FurnishWEB clients beginning January 28, 2009.

ABOUT INTERNET DATABASES - Internet Databases of Blacksburg, Virginia is a custom web development company that has been serving the furniture industry since 1999. The internet software provider develops custom solutions that enhance customer relationships through business-to-business transactions, sales force automation, online catalogs, and online order processing. FurnishWEB is an order management extranet targeted at home furnishings manufacturers and importers. The subscription-based application has features that include online order entry and status; product information and inventory status; photo library and sales and management reporting.

For more information visit www.furnishweb.com or contact a representative at info@furnishweb.com.