Seeing growth in Home Furnshings eCommerce, Shoptelligence adds three industry veterans to its team.
ANN ARBOR, MI – June 5, 2020 – Shoptelligence announces the expansion of its team, welcoming three Home Furnishings industry veterans to the Shoptelligence family. Frank DeFalco has joined the firm as Business Development Director and Julie Kennedy and Doug Collier have joined the Board of Advisors. “We are delighted to extend the Shoptelligence team with such talent and industry expertise”, remarked Laura Khoury, CEO.
Frank DeFalco has served the industry for more than 20 years, most recently at ecUtopia as director of business development. Throughout his career, he has worked in the enterprise software solution space with a specific focus on home furnishings and general retail, with companies such as JDA, Red Prairie, Escalate Retail and GERS.
“Shoptelligence’s platform helps shoppers with a unique design experience that provides more fun and more time with products. It’s like having your own personal assistant to help create for each customer a ‘personal store.’ It saves the customer time and adds up to more sales and profit from each visit by building customer satisfaction and loyalty.” says Frank. “Frank is a phenomenal additional to the team. He adds a strong history and many years of industry knowledge specific to retail, wholesale distribution, business development specifically in home furnishings,” Laura said. “His past experience with a wide variety of software solutions for retailers, manufacturers and distributors gives us insights that will translate into real benefits for our customers and partners.”
Doug Collier is a highly accomplished global executive and is a board director and advisor for several private companies in the consumer products industry, and is an active early stage investor and advisor with many companies in industries ranging from consumer hardware and software to food and beverage. He is also a member of the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Science Board of Advisors and Innovation and Commercialization Sub-Committee and Vice Chair of the Alumni Engagement Sub-Committee.
Doug’s most recent executive experience includes 12 years at La-Z-Boy at which he held the roles of Senior Vice President, Chief Commercial Officer and President International. He was a key member of the executive team that led the company’s significant turnaround after the 2009 financial crisis, leading to a market cap increase from $66 million in early 2009 to over $1.5 billion by 2019.
Doug shares, “I’m pleased to be involved with Shoptelligence as they focus on maximizing the conversion and average ticket that retailers can realize from their shoppers. Their combination of data and AI-driven technology so easily and quickly implemented across several touch points, from web and mobile to email to in-store, is a great complement to retailers’ other web and in-store capabilities.” “Doug’s involvement comes at a perfect time,” says Laura. “His experience driving La-Z-Boy’s commercial activities including digital innovation, as well as his current exposure to early stage companies innovating across a range of industries is a great combination for us. The company is in high-growth mode and is looking to aggressively scale. Doug brings the expertise to help us do that by helping us drive tangible measurable value for our clients.”
Julie Kennedy served as Senior Director of Marketing at Ashley Furniture, the largest retailer and manufacturer of furniture and mattresses in the world, developing and executing strategic marketing programs for the network of 1,000+ corporate and licensee store locations in 123 countries.
Julie executed breakthrough marketing and media programs as Director of Advertising at Art Van Furniture where she helped to grow the company’s store count by 400% in 5 years, running all digital, social, traditional and new media activities for the company, while managing one of the best in-house advertising teams in the furniture industry.
Julie says, “I am excited to be part of the Shoptelligence team to bring retail industry perspective and help position and connect them to their target customer. Shopping motivation and expectation has changed dramatically in the last few years. The shopping journey is increasingly moving toward mobile devices and consumers are accepting nothing less than a seamless digital shopping experience. Shoptelligence removes the friction in the journey and captures the consumer at the point of inspiration, bringing a more delightful shopping experience to the shopper which translates to longer website visits and higher AOV. It’s a win-win,” says Julie.
About Shoptelligence
Shoptelligence is the Home Furnishings industry’s leading solution to increase order size, helping retailers grow revenue per buyer more than 30%. Our AI-based platform helps shoppers discover more of a retailer’s assortment by providing interactive rooms around any item a shopper is viewing. It’s a fun, interactive designer experience that when buyers use, they engage six times longer, actively consider 2X more products and add 42% more items to their orders. Requiring only a retailer’s basic product catalog, it’s easy to implement and clients experience results in just weeks. It works online, in store and with email to help retailers get more out of their existing traffic and increase customer lifetime value. For more information, visit www.shoptelligence.com.
Media Contact:
Richard Millunchick, VP Operations, Shoptelligence
734.678.7145 | rmillunchick@shoptelligence.com
