Under The Radar:Couch potatoes with a hatred of furniture shopping will have a lot to thank Richard Moyles for. The Mayo man is the brains behind Furniture.ie, an online service where customers can source new and used furniture, home accessories, products, services and even interior decorating advice all from the convenience of a single location - their couch.

Moyles (29) may be no couch potato himself, but a weekend spent trawling around furniture shops, stuck in traffic and not finding what he was looking for when he was trying to buy some furniture for his parents' house a few years ago got him thinking about an online furniture service.

Finding furniture just took too much time and energy, he reckoned.

At that stage he was still at college, studying woodwork and design and furniture technology, but he stayed with the idea and registered the domain name for Furniture.ie, an online portal for people looking for furniture.

"I started the company in 2003 but it was probably too early at that stage and I had a part-time job as well," says Moyles.

"But from 2005 onward I was full time at it and in the past 18 months it has really taken off."

Establishing his own business in his mid-20s and when he was not long out of college did not frighten the Crossmolina native.

"I had always wanted to set up my own business," he says. "It had no risks; I didn't have family or a big mortgage. I had no real commitments or obstacles in the way to setting it up. It was the right time to do it."

Essentially Furniture.ie is a consumer website that allows people to shop for, and compare, thousands of products from different retailers and manufacturers.

"It is a shopping centre for the home and that shopping centre contains lots of different stores," says Moyles. "People can choose what they want. Sometimes it is not about price but about getting the product that you really like."

The website currently features more than 2,000 products from 15 retailers including well-known names such as Habitat, Instore, Irish Trading Company, Strawbridge and the children's furniture company, Treehouse.

"Companies pay to display their products, services and information about their company on our website," says Moyles.

"We have started to get into the area of commission-based sales as well. If someone purchases a product after viewing it on our website, we can then generate commission based on that sale."

Today, Furniture.ie has more than 13,670 members and gets about 75,000 unique visitors to the website each month.

"When I started off I was a one-man band and developed from that," says Moyles.

"I currently employ five people and this small team gives us the flexibility to try things out and adapt and react to opportunities and circumstances as they arise. We developed the whole site ourselves in-house and that gives us the flexibility to add things or change things quite quickly on the site."

This flexibility has seen the website develop additional services to complement its retail offering. For example, it provides an e-Quest service, which allows visitors to the website to submit a request for an item they are looking for. Upon receipt of the request, the team at Furniture.ie send it to suitable retailers in its network and within days the customer receives quotes directly to their e-mail inbox.

In addition, there is a "Get Inspired" section on the website - a service dedicated to providing decorating ideas, plans and advice from a team of interior designers. Also, after purchasing a bathroom suite or kitchen, Furniture.ie provides the customer with a directory of service providers to help them have their new sinks fitted or old furniture removed, says Moyles.

Another addition to the website is the Furniture.ie "community", which allows members of the website to share ideas, sell or give away unwanted products and discuss anything to do with their homes.

The company's success led to Moyles winning the Irish Internet Association's internet entrepreneur of the year award in 2006 and just last week Furniture.ie was named best commercial website at the 2008 Digital Media Awards.

Despite the success to date, Moyles says there is still plenty of room to grow.

"Online advertising in Ireland is expected to grow to 3.6 per cent of total advertising spend, whereas in the UK it is just over 12 per cent," he says. "Our vision for the future is to continue providing our visitors with an easy-to-use, consumer-focused online resource to source products, services and inspiration for their homes."