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Name this e-commerce company...

E-mail | Print | Comments () Posted by Scott Kirsner December 16, 2009 07:15 AM

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Here's a holiday e-commerce challenge sure to stump you...

Name this company:

- Based in the Back Bay.

- Founded in 2002 by two guys who first met as undergrads at Cornell.

- Will earn well over $200 million in revenues this year.

- Employs 525 people, more than 100 of whom were hired in 2009.

- Featured on Internet Retailer's list of the "Hot 100 Retail Web Sites" this year.

- Counts a bean bag chair, a doll house, the $700 Herman Miller Aeron chair, and a countertop convection oven as some of its top-selling items this month.

- Add the letter Y to its name and you've got the name of a folk rock super-group.

The company is one of Boston's biggest e-commerce companies, if not the biggest: CSN Stores, which sells a somewhat haphazard blend of housewares, furniture, pet supplies, luggage, fitness equipment, binoculars, medical supplies, and shoes.

What unites all of the items sold by CSN? The company focuses on products that are difficult to ship and require lots of product information to make the sale. CSN also likes to focus on niches where it can build a comprehensive selection -- offering even more items than Amazon. "We strive to have the biggest selection in any category we're in," says CEO Niraj Shah, who started the company with chairman Steve Conine.

The company has its headquarters in the Pru, and operates a warehouse in Hyde Park that stocks a single-digit percentage of the site's inventory, Shah explains. Most merch is shipped directly from the manufacturer or from a distributor. "We focus on selection, service, and value," says Shah. "Those things aren't rocket science." About 200 of the company's employees work in customer service.

Shah and Conine sold their first post-collegiate start-up, a Web design consultancy called Spinners, in 1998. They haven't relied on venture capital to start or grow CSN Stores.

Not raising outside capital "makes you a lot more diligent about making money from every sale," says Conine. "It keeps you really efficient."

Shah says the company is constantly looking for new product categories to expand into, and will be very much focused on recruiting in 2010. "We think the next ten years of e-commerce are going to be even more exciting than the last ten," he says.

(Here's a WCVB Chronicle segment from September that featured CSN Stores...)

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About Scott Kirsner Scott Kirsner was part of the team that launched Boston.com in 1995, and has been writing a column for the Globe since 2000. His work has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Newsweek, and Variety. Scott is also the author of the books "Fans, Friends & Followers" and "Inventing the Movies," was the editor of "The Convergence Guide: Life Sciences in New England," and was a contributor to "The Good City: Writers Explore 21st Century Boston." Scott also helps organize several local events on entrepreneurship, including the Nantucket Conference and Future Forward. Here's some background on how Scott decides what to cover, and how to pitch him a story idea.

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June 12: MITX Innovation Awards
Honoring innovative sites, software, and tech products created in New England.

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The monthly product launch event and schmooze-fest comes to the North Shore for the first time.

June 18-21: BIO International Convention
The enormous biotech industry trade show comes to town, with speakers like Senator John Kerry, Christopher Viehbacher of Sanofi, and Human Genome Sciences CEO Thomas Watkins.

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