— Furniture Today,
Adds Leon’s, DirectBuy and Famous Tate Appliance & Bedding

SAN DIEGO — Leon’s Furniture, DirectBuy and Tampa, Fla.’s Famous Tate Appliance and Bedding Centers are using retail software supplier FurnishNet’s Internet-based supply chain transaction services, adding three chains to the GERS company’s client list.

Leon’s and Famous Tate are using FurnishNet’s Java Store Operations and point-of-sale software. Leon’s is one of Canada’s largest home furnishings retailers. Famous Tate says it’s the 30th largest appliance and mattress dealer in the United States.

The FurnishNet systems are “easy to learn, which reduces training time, and creates orders faster,” said David Libbey, systems manager at Famous Tate, which has seven stores in the greater Tampa area. “This frees up our salespeople to spend more time with customers.”

DirectBuy of Merrillville, Ind., is outsourcing all electronic data interchange activities to FurnishNet. The first phase targets EDI between the chain and the 200 manufacturers in the FurnishNet network.

Donna Vaughan, DirectBuy’s senior director of management information systems, said the company is seeking to reduce overhead, improve communications and speed order turnaround for its 128 showroom and design centers in the United States and Canada.

“Our integration with the FurnishNet network gives us the opportunity to keep growing our top line while streamlining the way we work with our vendors,” she said. “We’ll be able to do more without adding more people and paperwork.”