Milwaukee-based National Business Furniture has opened a showroom, for its online customers, in a 15,000-square-foot space formerly occupied by an Old Navy store in the Shops of Grand Avenue in downtown Milwaukee.
NBF consultants use portable wireless cameras to show the products to customers on the Internet.
“This showroom is really intended for our website visitors so they can connect with our sales people and get live product demonstrations right from our web site,” said Dean Stier, vice president of marketing for National Business Furniture.
“We want to engage with our customers in new and better ways, and live video demonstrations offer the next best thing to actually being next to an item,” said NBF President Kent Anderson. “We believe this service bridges the gap between retail shopping and web shopping.”
The Old Navy store at the Shops of Grand Avenue closed in 2009. The mall has struggled with a high vacancy rate for years and the mall’s ownership has changed hands numerous times in recent years. The mall has tried to fill space with non-traditional tenants including nonprofits, artists, creative companies and entrepreneurs.
