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Furniture.com Inc., a one time retailer that relaunched several years ago as a provider of ecommerce and fulfillment services to other furniture retailers, has re-emerged again as Blueport Commerce Inc. As such, it plans to serve a broader range of merchants.

It will remain as a unit of Blueport Commerce and continue to operate as an ecommerce site that channels online sales for regional furniture store chains, most of which fulfill orders from their own warehouses through local delivery services, said Blueport president and CEO, Carl Prindle. Blueport has also begun offering ecommerce technology and services to groups of retailers offering products that are complementary to furniture products, such as Flooring America, a national network of about 600 flooring products dealers.

"We specialize in unique ecommerce challenges, including merchandising complex products online, and fulfilling orders of large items not usually sent via UPS and FedEx," Prindle said. Blueport also plans to expand its business of developing and managing ecommerce websites, he added.

While providing FlooringAmerica.com as a central marketplace for flooring products, Blueport is also offering ecommerce sites to Flooring America's individual dealers. "We expect almost 600 Flooring America dealers to have their own sites," Prindle said.

Blueport operates on a revenue sharing model with its client retailers, charging them a percentage of the value of online transactions, according to Prindle. The company also expects to expand beyond home products and branch out into more areas, including consumer electronics, he said.

Article ID: 977