By Alan Wolf, YSN
AVB’s marketing and merchandising teams Zoomed in with a full agenda on yesterday’s live, weekly webcast.
Topping their list of innovations and announcements was the addition of email cart functionality to AVB’s e-commerce platform. The new online feature allows dealers who are engaging shoppers via chat to assemble a shopping cart with potential purchases and email the suggested bundle to the customer.
The function resides on the shopping cart, and pricing is removed from the email to avoid any conflicts should the purchase be made after a promotion has ended. The concept helps address shopping cart abandonment, represents a new communication tool for members, and, added AVB Marketing’s Danielle Diaz, “is a great way to build an email list.”
BrandSource members using AVB’s transactional websites must opt in to receive the new feature.
Elsewhere during the webcast, AVB Merchandising Vice President Chad Evans announced that mattresses, like appliances before them, could now be sorted by weight on member websites. Arriving in time for the July 4th selling period, the new capability can fill the first pages of a site’s mattress catalog with dealers’ best-selling, promotionally priced, and in-stock items, which yields greater conversion rates than alphabetical listings.
On the appliance side, Evans offered an update on Electrolux and Frigidaire availability, which had been tight due to the COVID-related closure of the company’s manufacturing complex in Juarez, Mexico. The good news, he said, is that the plant, which produces side-by-side, French door, and top- and bottom-mount refrigerators under the Frigidaire badge, has resumed production. But the bad news is that the Mexican government considers laundry products non-essential, and the Electrolux washer and dryer assembly lines will remain idle until next week.
Evans advised members to “Get your orders in the system” to assure their share of what may be limited inventory.
Evans and the marketing team’s Alisha Starelli also apprised listeners of the multitude of vendor rebates, and extended financing offers and social media messaging from AVB, to help make the Father’s Day and July 4 sales periods prolific. These include a “swipeable” Father’s Day campaign for Flexsteel dealers that’s made for Facebook and Instagram; a customer appreciation event featuring Google Display ads and Google My Business promotional posts; and this month’s “Shop Local”-themed Facebook video ad effort. Details on all are available in the Backroom and through members’ AVB Marketing account executives.
AVB Marketing is a unit of YSN publisher AVB Inc.
