A Detroit Startup Is Bringing The Home Furnishings Industry Into The 21st Century

A Detroit-based tech startup that provides data for the home furnishings industry has expanded its product offering.

Amber Engine, a data source for furniture manufacturers, recently added support for furniture retailers, which will allow them to manage the data for their product lines through a digital interface.

“Amber Engine’s passion is to help this industry enable innovation, and how that happens is solving this product data problem that has plagued the industry for many years,” said Akre. “Traditional retail is struggling because consumers have the web, and the internet can be a retailer’s best friend or worst enemy, depending on how they absorb the web into their business model.”

According to Akre, many furniture retailers’ digital presence is lacking, and Amber Engine’s platform is a way to reconcile a company’s online inventory and its in-store offering. Akre said the average retailer spends 20 to 30 hours a month manually entering product data into operational systems, and that having that data available on an online platform can increase operational efficiencies.

“Amber Engine’s mission is to provide the most accurate and timely record of product data for the industry,” Akre said. “Once there is a master repository of product information, manufacturers can consolidate images, product information, get marketing content, pricing and promotional information, all in one spot, they can control distribution of that data to appropriate retailers.”

That all-in-one platform will allow home furnishing retailers to provide the same seamless sales experience that consumers have grown used to with multi-channel sales (being able to find the same item in-store and online).

Amber Engine’s technology stack is built in Go, Python, and React.

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