Patrick Brown is the Chief Operations Officer at Epopus. Patrick holds a B.A. in Law Enforcement and Psychology from the University of Illinois. After leaving a law enforcement career with the Illinois State Police, Patrick has spent a total of 29 years in the furniture industry; having held every position from small Mom and Pop retail beginnings to big box retailers such as 18 years combined at Wickes and Heilig-Meyers, just prior to joining Epopus, Patrick was the VP Sales at The Spring Air Corporation, where he drove unprecedented growth in national account and E-Commerce business for the company.

Patrick is responsible for Epopus' company operations, and will be launching our multi-faceted E-Commerce sales education program in 2008.

Warren Fosse Jr. is the Director of Ecommerce at Epopus and brings a wealth of experience in areas of creative development, website navigation and optimization, online marketing, content management and project leadership.

Warren began the online chapter of his career in 1996, as the cofounder and President of Dancing Ink Media, whose first major client was FurnitureFind.com, one of the earliest furniture e-commerce sites. FurnitureFind and Dancing Ink officially merged in early 1998, and Warren became Director of IT and Web Development until 2002.

Spending the remainder of his 10+ years with FurnitureFind as the Director of Web Content & Interface Design, Warren played a key role in enhancing the website and content management systems. Warren also worked as a resource to FurnitureFind's parent company in designing and building out many other successful websites.

E-Commerce growth:

On line furniture sales for the past five years continues to grow at double digit pace, with higher average tickets. Brick and mortar sales have grown low single digits at best for the same period with declining average ticket sales. Attrition at retail has forced everyone from manufacturers to retailers to search for alternative avenues of distribution to replace this business. More and more retailers are pursuing an e-commerce strategy with little knowledge on how to enter this arena. Some have tried and have not seen great results due to poor execution. Manufacturers are seeking D2C or B2B solutions as they are seeing sales declines and are taking huge hits to their A/R with brick and mortar retail attrition. Brick and mortar retailers are finding it very difficult to compete with the Rooms-To-Go and Ashley Home Store model.

Experience: Pam Durkin's work history and experience. High standards of customer service gained at an early stage with experience in hotel hospitality industry, retail furniture, furniture manufacturer relationships gained through extensive background developed Art Van Furniture, entry into E-Commerce Furniture Find: call center C/S and sales of furniture and manufacturer experience / relationships broadened, adding extensive 3PL specific furniture experience to her unique and growing resume. If Pam chooses to share, the team she has assembled work history and experience.

How and why was Epopus formed?

Pam Durkin found many years ago that while attending the furniture markets as an early entry e-commerce player that she was constantly being approached by furniture manufacturers and furniture retailers; (of which by this time had formed extensive relationships with) asking her expert advice on how to either enter into the e-commerce arena or how to better perform within this arena. Pam recognized from her tenure at Furniture Find that the double digit growth in e-commerce of big ticket furniture was producing huge revenue increases every year, that no one offered an entire e-commerce solution for the furniture industry, and now that she was not tied to one company, that her knowledge and experience had tangible value. Knowing that no one offered a total e-commerce solution for the furniture industry, Pam decided to form a company that this very specialized industry demanded.

In June 2005 Epopus was established.

Epopus' original client list was comprised of furniture manufacturers, retailers looking for analysis of their e-commerce business plan, manufacturers looking for analysis of their current e-commerce business plan or how to enter the arena, retailers looking to enter e-tailing, working on behalf of manufacturers / retailers to negotiate RFP for 3PL services, working on behalf of 3PL companies to partner them with the needs of e-tailers / and manufacturers. As Epopus grew, the list of clients grew larger and as word of mouth regarding Epopus' outstanding performance spread the clients themselves grew larger. Today Epopus works with dozens of the top players in retail, e-tailing, and manufacturing.