April 17, 2002
Like something dusted off and hauled down from the attic, Furniture.com is returning to the Web, this time as an "online storefront" for established retailers, including Levitz and Seaman.
The original Furniture.com was one of the more spectacular collapses of the 1990s e-commerce frenzy. It burned through $100 million in investors' cash before being carted off to bankruptcy court in November 2000, leaving thousands of embittered consumers without the furniture they had bought and paid for.
The CEO of the "new" Furniture.com is Carl Prindle, who was a senior vice president during the company's previous incarnation. He and two associates formed a new venture in late 2000 and began working to acquire the brand name, Web address and some of the backend technology of the original.
As Prindle sees it, things were just starting to pick up when the lights went out. Having watched the venture lose $46 million on sales of $10.9 million in 1999, investors had a somewhat different perspective. Prindle says expectations are "more reasonable and measured" now.
This time around, the company will be acting as an agent for "brick-and-mortar" (remember that quaint phrase?) merchants and will not be burdened with the inventory costs that supposedly weighed it down the first time around.
Among the financial backers of the latest version of Furniture.com is Resurgence Asset Management, the majority shareholder of Levitz Home Furnishing, which owns both Levitz Furniture and Seaman Furniture.
