Crate & Barrel

The international furniture and home decor retail store Crate & Barrel was created by a husband and wife team,Gordon and Carole Segal. They were inspired by their honeymoon in the Caribbean, where they saw inexpensive, yet stylish European home decor items and household products for sale. The couple wanted to provide other young American couples with a place to buy these functional yet tasteful European products, at an affordable price.

The Segals began by traveling to Europe to meet with ceramicists, glassblowers and furnituremakers, seeking out small European suppliers that were not represented in America. They would then sell these products from their premises - an abandoned elevator factory in Chicago. They were able to offer great prices by negotiating direct prices from these manufacturers, then passing the savings on to the customer. To this day, a large majority of the products sold at Crate & Barrel are direct imports from Europe.

The name “Crate&Barrel” came from the way the Segals displayed their products in their original Chicago store. They would actually display the products on the barrels and crates they had been shipped in, packing materials and all. This somewhat theatrical choice was the perfect way to emphasize one of the strongest selling points of their products - that they were direct international imports. The company was also one of the innovators of displaying home items in a “vignette” style, grouped together as they might appear in your home.

Expand Your eCommerce Sales Strategy by Selling on Crate & Barrel

These days, customers can purchase furniture and home items online at crateandbarrel.com, a marketplace offering carefully curated products from new brands as well as additional product categories that complement Crate & Barrel’s existing range. Crate & Barrel experiences an almost even split between online and in-store purchases, and they are just as innovative in their approach to eCommerce selling as they are to their brick-and-mortar stores.

Many people love shopping at Crate & Barrel because they can furnish their home at an affordable price without having to sacrifice style and quality. The European, Scandinavian and Asian imports offered reflect taste and sophistication - and if your products fit into the aesthetic you could find success selling with Crate & Barrel.

You can become a Crate & Barrel seller by joining the CB Trade Program and get your products in front of millions of shoppers. There are over 100,000 Crate & Barrel suppliers across multiple categories, and this is a great way to expand your multichannel eCommerce business.

Goflow Helps You Streamline Your eCommerce Strategy and Sell More

With smart, automated multichannel eCommerce software like Goflow on your side, selling on Crate & Barrel is easier than ever before. The software’s comprehensive suite of features allows you to sync live inventory updates to the Crate & Barrel marketplace, so you’ll always know exactly which items you have in stock.

You’ll be able to easily view your sales totals and track your store’s performance for return rates, profit margin and other important sales metrics. Within Goflow, you can view detailed analytics reports that will reveal insights into your customer trends, helping you to adjust your inventory and sales strategies and maximize your success.