COO Dave Meekings outlines AVB’s simplified merchandising and sales platform at yesterday’s Main Stage event.
Group ‘Simplifies & Unifies’ online and in-store functions
By Alan Wolf, YSN
One of AVB’s longstanding goals is to ease the operational hurdles for independent owners, freeing them up to sell merchandise.
At this week’s Summit 2022, the group unveiled plans to take that effort to a new level with a game-changing initiative that brings AVB’s online and in-store merchandising functions together under a simplified structure.
In a Main Stage address to members yesterday, COO Dave Meekings said the goal of the enhancement is to “simplify and unify” AVB’s Alta, HUB, LINQ and POS systems with a plug-and-play approach that creates a seamless, multichannel shopping experience.
Bundled together in a four-tier series of service levels, the new Alta program allows the group’s transactional sites and backroom operations “to act as one,” Meekings said, delivering the right information with fewer steps to manage the customer experience.
“The shopping experience is matched by the technology experience,” he told attendees, creating an “ultimate selling machine” that draws customers online and can direct them to the physical sales floor.
As part of the launch, AVB is adding a sixth, in-house POS system called Sync to its current lineup of fully integrated, Gold Provider Partner platforms from EPASS, Profit, Storis, Whirlwind and Windward.
What’s more, AVB’s Alta e-commerce platform, which already leads the industry in conversions and cost efficiency, will receive new enhancements of its own, said CMO John White, including website promotional banners and additional search attributes that further its “promo-first messaging and appealing design.”
On the brick-and-mortar side, members can also opt for a new vertical orientation of AVB’s popular KIOSQ program of LINQ-synched in-store displays, he said, which will be available to members this month.
Taken together, White added, AVB is providing “a unified shopping experience in a way no one else is doing today.”
BrandSource, a unit of YSN publisher AVB Inc., is nationwide buying group for independent appliance, furniture, mattress and CE dealers.
