Amish furniture retailer moves up in Next 1000 list — highlighting pandemic revenue growth

JMX Brands was named to the Digital Commerce 360 Next 1000 list for the third year in a row. 

The niche internet retailer is the parent company of the Amish furniture retailer DutchCrafters. The Next 1000 database ranks North American mid-sized online retailers by annual web sales. The online furniture retailer ranked 1,286 overall compared to 1,412 on the 2020 list. 

DutchCrafters also moved up in the primary merchandise category of housewares and home furnishings from 37 in 2020 to 28 this year. The listed retailers sold a combined $13 billion online 2020, up 20% year over year, according to the Digital Commerce 360 website.

This is the ninth time JMX Brands has been named to a Digital Commerce 360 list. From 2012-2017, the small business was named to what was formerly known as Internet Retailer Magazine’s Mid-Market 500 lists. 

"We have been watching and landing on this list for several years now," CEO Jim Miller tells Coffee Talk, "so it means a lot to us."

Miller includes that part of the company's vision in 2013 included making it on the list, noting that over the years it's become increasingly harder. "That just underscores what a privilege it is for us to be on the list," he says.

DutchCrafters is no stranger to being recognized for its growth. The company experienced quite a bit of growth during the pandemic by focusing efforts on search engine marketing and ecommerce. 

In 2018, the company faced a weakness in its SEO traffic due to a Google algorithm change. Since then, the team has worked hard on those deficiencies, a process that began a bit before the pandemic started. Around the same time, the company saw a surge in organic traffic. “This took us from zero to 60 in a matter of months,” Miller previously told us. 

In the 12 month period from April 2020 through this past April, revenue was up 92%, from $11.6 million to $22.3 million. The company also added about 20 employees, pushing its payroll at least 50% to 61 employees through the first quarter.

"Our growth in web-based retail has been driven by the real success our team has had in search engine optimization," Miller says.