Fly By Night, a highly successful independent furniture store, made their first sale (a futon) in the streets of Amherst, Mass. during the summer of 1988. Armed with only a sidewalk vending permit, the first sale was marketed, paid for, and delivered out of a VW bus.

A lot has changed since Fly By Night's modest 1988 beginnings.

Fly By Night has expanded from its origins as a small "mobile" futon company, spending the past 15 years in a retail space in Northampton, Mass. During this time, the company has spread its footprint to over 22,000 square feet of space. This makes Fly By Night arguably the most successful full-line independent furniture store in western Massachusetts.

Tortus Technologies was selected by Fly By Night to be their outsource technology partner in January 2008 after the furniture company considered a wide array of options, including the use of off-shore development companies, other vendors, and an in-house team. Ultimately, they chose Tortus. Why? As Fly By Night President Richard Zafft said, "I like you guys-- you talk my talk". We interpreted this to mean that Tortus, which is a firm (not a web developer), understood their overall business goals and objectives.

Two more important reasons that Fly By Night opted to work with us? We're search engine optimization specialists, getting our clients organically on the first page of Google, Yahoo, and MSN for their key search phrases. Plus, we're a firm that offers design, programming, project management, marketing support, and a host of other services under one roof--unlike a nephew, niece, cousin, or graphic designer working out of their garage.

Collaboratively working with Fly By Night, Tortus redesigned an e-commerce website that was ready to launch within four months. However, as is the case in many business endeavors, things change. Just before launching their new e-commerce website, Fly By Night decided to purchase and implement a new point of sale (POS) system. Since the Tortus team also integrates and develops software, this was no problem. Our development process uses web "best practices", enabling a shopping cart or payment gateway to be easily added at any time.

Fly By Night's redesigned site is completed (www.flybynight.com) and includes a content management system, a detailed product catalog, an improved navigation, and other features. Check back in a few months to tour the added e-commerce capabilities. The web is a dynamic utility that is in perpetual development!

We're making Fly By Night mobile and ubiquitous on the web -- a big step from that VW bus in Amherst.