Swank is a new marketplace for decorating surfaces. Swank is seeking to revolutionize the way homeowners, designers and construction pros shop for tile, stone, mosaic and hardwood surfaces. Using its service, Swank promises that customers will "spend less time driving, and more time choosing". Through their desktop, mobile website and mobile applications, Swank helps construction professionals discover new and unique surfaces at great values that they would likely not find elsewhere. Swank sources merchandise from hundreds of vendors, including emerging brands and smaller boutique vendors, as well as larger national brands. Swank distinguishes itself by offering what they believe to be the world’s largest centralized selection of affordable surfacing materials. Swanks platform was developed to provide a shopping experience that delivers entertainment, value and convenience for homeowners and industry pros anytime and anywhere. Swank hopes to be able to provide its vendors with access to a large and highly engaged consumer audience, creating significant brand exposure and revenue opportunities. Many of their existing vendors are small-to-medium sized businesses and may have difficulty reaching a targeted audience of homeowners, designers and construction pros on a broad scale. Using Swanks platform, their vendors can potentially reach a large and targeted audience while also eliminating wholesale, direct sales and marketing costs for the products they sell through Swanks platform, potentially making Swank an attractive channel for them. To best serve their customers and vendors, Swank operates a minimal inventory, intermediary drop-ship model where Swank takes customer orders before they purchase inventory from their vendors. As a result, they are able to offer a much larger selection of products to their customers than local flooring or Big box retailers do, while at the same time generating greater sales for their vendors, who are able to match a broader range of their product supply to actual customer demand. Swanks indicates their customers enjoy the flexibility to purchase home improvement products online with easy product delivery, return guarantee and access to product experts. Swank intends to deliver a reliable and hassle-free experience in an industry known for historically poor customer service. Swank has been operating in a private beta mode since early February 2014. Swank intends to launch the Swank website and mobile apps to the general public in March of 2014. .................................................................................. Mobile apps Swank IOS apps for iPad and iPhone can be downloaded here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/swank-tile-stone-wood-flooring/id799942461?mt=8 Swank Android apps for phones and tablets coming soon.