NEW YORK, New York — F. Schumacher is making a major bet on on-line sales with its latest efforts to email its client base information about its new collections. The U.S. Department of Commerce tracked the percentage of retail sales made on line at 7.5 percent for the fourth quarter of 2015 and it continues to grow at a faster rate than conventional retail sales. Certainly, F. Schumacher has these statistics in mind with its latest on-line strategy. F. Schumacher as a policy does not comment on its marketing or hiring activities and in general prefers to stay under the radar. Specifically, FSchumacher.com is flogging cyberspace with three separate emailings this past week to its mail list of designers touting its new licensed collections designed by ‘Veere Grenney,’  (Class Act); Miles Redd (Get the Look); ‘Don’t Blink—a lightning fast visual presentation of Schumacher’s ‘Piet Linen’ in 49 colors and ‘Essentials’, a line of small scale jacquard designs and ‘Tough Enough’, a selection of performance fabrics. All email promotion is tied into the ‘blogfschumacher.com’ electronic newsletter which is a tutorial for designers covering things like rub tests for contract fabrics and other pertinent information about Schumacher. If the designer has an account with the company and password, pricing and order information is available. It is reportedly part of a new merchandising push that will eliminate traditional sampling of new collections. Supposedly, the company will no longer produce sample books of its new  fabric collections although there are plenty of older collections still on showroom shelves. While Schumacher Chairman Gerald Puschel was not available for comment, it is understood that the new online strategy was developed by CEO Timur Yumusaklar and executed by Dara Caponigro, Creative Director of this venerable American editeur founded in 1879 by Frederic Schumacher. The German borne Yumusaklar was previously CEO of Zalando, an online shopping destination said to offer over 1.500 brands of fashion and shoe items to over 14 million customers. At the time of his hiring by Chairman Puschel in May, 2015 F&FI speculated that Yumusaklar was hired to get Schumacher further along the learning curve in online marketing and sales. This latest move to eliminate conventional sampling cost in favor of on-line sampling is no doubt an example of Yumusaklar’s initiatives and he should be congratulated on a flawless execution so far. With so many conventional and online retailers engaged in on-line sales, the decorative fabric industry would do well to change their traditional model if it produces the results required. Schumacher should be congratulated on this major effort. No further information has been forthcoming from F.Schumacher even though Fabrics & Furnishings International has made several attempts to promote a dialogue with various members of management and staff.