Online antiques mall GoAntiques has reorganized its management team and board of directors. Ken Buhler, founder of GoAntiques, was removed as CEO and Chairman of the Board, and has left the company to "pursue other interests." Buhler was replaced by CFO Dale Schexnayder, who will now serve as CEO. Former VP of Business Development, Jim Kamnikar, was named new President of GoAntiques.
In addition to the personnel changes, GoAntiques announced that they are launching new ecommerce strategies, including streamlining their shipping processes, switching the platform that the Site runs on to IBM's DB2 running on Linux for more scalability, and changing the way dealers handle transactions on the site.
"In the past, all transactions were executed by GoAntiques," explained Jim Kamnikar. "All payments would then be wire-transferred to the dealers each Friday. With the new system, all dealers will execute their own transactions, and can accept their own payment methods."
According to Kamnikar, GoAntiques boasts 700 dealers in 16 countries, and has over 175,000 pieces of inventory on the site. The company is "very excited" about the new direction and said it is coming off a successful holiday shopping season.
Buhler started GoAntiques 1999. The Louisiana-based company acquired Antique Networking in February 2002, then owned by Kathy Kamnikar. Although most of GoAntiques' employees are based in Columbus, Ohio, no decision has been made about keeping the Baton Rouge offices operating.
http://www.goantiques.com
