The Furniture Shop

AMJ Campbell is Canada’s largest coast-to-coast moving company, having provided home and office move and delivery services for over 85 years. The Calgary branch has been operating for 40+ years and specializes in warehousing and delivery for many large scale retailers.

Building Relationship
Through Small Projects

We began our relationship with AMJ Calgary by creating a new website, giving them the functionality they needed while elevating their online presence with a clean and professional look. We continue to do updates as required.

Empowering Vision
Bringing Dreams to Life

A few months into the project, AMJ shared that as many businesses were experiencing economic challenges, scaling back or ultimately closing up shop, an excess of office furniture was left behind during office moves. Much of this furniture was destined for the landfill, so in an effort to avoid this, AMJ found their inventory of surplus furniture began to grow.

They invited us into the challenge of helping them repurpose this surplus furniture online at a reasonable cost. With our in-depth knowledge of digital possibilities and business processes, we took on more of a consultation role.

We helped them flesh out their idea and build a strategy around it: How would they showcase the furniture? Who would the customers be? Where would customers go to see the products in person? Where would the transactions take place?

Over many cups of coffee and workflow diagrams, the sales process began to take shape, cumulating with the startup of a brand new venture: The Furniture Shop.

The Furniture Shop website snapshot

Landfill Issue turns
E-Commerce Venture

The Furniture Shop required a complete brand development and an e-commerce site to showcase the available inventory for purchase online.

Our team presented some unique ideas to push their business along and suggested ways they could see their vision become a very successful business venture. We even gave guidance on how to professionally photograph inventory and set up their showroom for maximum impact.

The e-commerce solution had numerous features that brought value to their new business - from inventory control to ease of adding and categorizing new products to online payment. Built into the design was the possibility of future expansion into marketing areas they were not yet using. We continued to iterate with AMJ to grow the platform as they clarified their goals.

Their website’s launch tripled their revenue in sales of repurposed furniture that had previously been headed to the landfill.

Going National

After a very successful two-year test run, the AMJ-Calgary team presented The Furniture Shop to the AMJ Canadian National headquarters with the idea that other branches could adopt the business model for themselves.

First up was the Montreal branch. They needed the logo in French, as well as branding materials customized for their context. Within 3 months of implementation, their profits were ten times what they had paid our team to help them get started.

With the success in these two branches, AMJ Canada took on the business idea, launching it as a national brand with multiple locations across Canada, with continued expansion plans. The structure of branding Helis had created provided them with the platform they needed to grow their local business into a national brand.

Featured Deliverables

  • Brand identity package including all brand assets: colour palette, logos for various formats, typography palettes
  • E-Commerce Solution including a fully customized website based on the Shopify platform with custom options and design.
  • Replication of brand packaging for additional locations
  • Creation of showroom and photo index of inventory

We were collecting an inventory of office furniture from our moving business, instead of filling up the landfill, we decided to resell the furniture. We tried doing it on our own for a while without much success. After hiring Helis, they helped create a user-friendly shopping experience for our customers with a new brand and message. In three months, our sales tripled, in two years, our business grew into a national brand with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto.

Doug Jasper - General Manager / Partner

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