Hank's Fine Furniture
About Hank's Fine Furniture
Founded in 1975 by Hank Browne, Hank's Fine Furniture has grown to 18 stores in 4 states and is one of America's Top 100 Independent Furniture Retailers. From the very beginning, Hank's Fine Furniture's success has been built on offering quality furniture, bedding and accessories at excellent values. As a family-owned business, Hank's Fine Furniture has thrived because of our dedication to service after the sale. You, the customer, have been the most important part of our business for over 40 years. You can read more on their about page.
About The Project
Mission: Deliver a full-scale e-commerce platform for this Top 100 Independent Furniture Retailer before their Adobe Muse website reached end-of-life. The engagement required building a custom e-commerce solution integrated with the client's enterprise inventory management system, enabling real-time product synchronization, inventory tracking, and seamless order processing across 18 retail locations.
Technologies Used: Laravel (PHP Backend Framework), Tailwind CSS (Utility-First Styling), Storis eBridge API (Enterprise Inventory Integration), Google Maps API (Store Locator Display), Google Geocode API (Address-to-Coordinate Conversion), MySQL (Database), Haversine Formula (Proximity Search Algorithm).
Links
Before: From the Web Archives
After: From the Web Archives (Note: The site has since been rebuilt; this archive link shows my Laravel build)
Summary
This platform delivered immediate, measurable business impact—generating $70,000 in sales during the first month after launch and establishing a strong ROI for the client's technology investment.
The core technical challenge involved architecting a bidirectional integration with the Storis eBridge API, the client's enterprise inventory management platform. This integration enables real-time product catalog synchronization, automatic inventory adjustments when orders are placed, and seamless data consistency across their 18 physical retail locations and the e-commerce storefront.
A notable feature is the geolocation-enabled store finder, which I implemented using the Google Geocoding API for address-to-coordinate conversion on the backend. Customer proximity searches leverage the Haversine formula to calculate great-circle distances between coordinates. I initially implemented this algorithm in PHP, then optimized performance by refactoring the calculation into a raw SQL query—significantly reducing response times for location searches within a 100-mile radius.
The administrative backend includes comprehensive tooling that empowers the client's team to manage content, products, and promotions independently—reducing ongoing maintenance overhead and ensuring long-term platform sustainability.