From Trussville Tribune staff reports
TRUSSVILLE –When Shannon Barnett of Barnett Furniture began the store’s online Fan Favorite Contest 2013, it was at the suggestion of a manufacturer. It was an immediate success and has continued to grow in popularity, though now without the manufacturer sponsorship.
“The first year it was being sponsored by one of our furniture manufacturers and they were giving us two chairs to give away, so the first year it was limited to just people that had bought a product by that company,” Barnett said. “The next year we opened it up to all Barnett Furniture purchases and it does not matter when you bought it. As long as you bought something in the room from us, you can enter.”
Barnett said the contest, which just completed it’s fourth year, has always had a great response and it is a nice fun way to give a thanks to loyal customers.
Winning is pretty exciting for one customer each year who claims a prize of ,000 in free furniture.
“We had 69 entries this year,” Barnett said. “We also had seven additional people that sent their pictures the morning the contest started, but I could not let them in, so they are already saved for next year.”
This year’s winner had 1587 likes, but the contest was close all the way to the end.
“Second place was neck and neck with them for several days,” Barnett said. “One would be ahead by like 20 likes then the other would be ahead by 20 likes. Second place had 1459 likes.”
The competition is fun for the locally owned business, but it’s a lot of work, too.
“Depending on when Sundays fall, I accept pictures for the month of January and voting begins usually the first of February,” Barnett said. “This year a Sunday was on January 31, so voting began on that day. Voting happens for two weeks and people are encouraged to share their photos.”
Barnett said the contest always begins on a Sunday because she needs a full day just to load the photos to Facebook.
“The total number of likes for all pictures this year was 7,696,” Barnett said. “You can only like a photo once – there is only one vote per person per photo – but people can like as many of the photos they want.”
One of the highlights for the people at Barnett’s is seeing the finished room with pieces of furniture purchased from the store.
“Since we are just family and each of us work with each customer to choose the right fabric and style to fit them, we are vested in all of our customers,” Barnett said. “We love to see what the room looks like all done, not just the pieces in our warehouse. This is a fun way to get them to send us pictures.”
You can see all of the entries here.