Free-for-All: HUB Unleashed for All Members

AVB CMO John White walks members through the group’s newest digital initiatives.

Plus, match funding boosted for Q4-Q1 bundles

By Alan Wolf, YSN

In its quest to make members’ business lives easier, more efficient and more profitable, AVB has made one of its core retail technology assets available to all BrandSource dealers.

HUB, the group’s proprietary customer relationship management (CRM) tool, can now be integrated into members’ back-office operations at no charge. As a reminder, HUB allows dealers to create and send quotes to customers and maintain two-way communication by text, email or phone. The platform, which ties together members’ point-of-sale (POS) systems, Alta websites, LINQ merchandising platform, digital price tags, in-store KIOSQs and other retail tools, also allows users to:

  • Search by specific product attributes like price and size
  • Screen for items that are in stock or on promotion
  • Track vendor inventory
  • Provide sales teams with promotional road maps and sell plans to help direct their efforts on the showroom floor.

As Chief Marketing Officer John White explained in his Convention 2023 address on Monday, “Communication is king,” and HUB can accompany the customer throughout her shopping journey and across multiple touch points.

As powerful as it is, HUB is only one arrow in AVB Marketing’s quiver. Another indispensable retail tool is SYNC, the group’s custom-designed POS system that tracks sales, service, parts and inventory, and can now automatically submit members’ sell-through claims to Whirlpool and Electrolux. The latter function, available at no cost, has retrieved an average of $10,000 in unclaimed margin funding for BrandSource dealers who have not historically filed their paperwork, White said, and will extend to additional manufacturers going forward.

Of course, a dealer’s most customer-facing digital asset is his website, and AVB’s Alta e-commerce platform is outperforming competitive systems by 30%, White reported. Contributing to that outperformance is:

  • A 10-fold increase in Alta’s online product catalog
  • An enhanced search engine that’s on par with Google Search
  • Pricing that reflects any post-sale rebates
  • On-the-fly pricing updates in near real time
  • Full-view, 360-degree product images
  • The ability to create customized columns
  • Inventory availability, including vendor warehouses

The latter, White said, is one of the first things customers have been trained to look for after experiencing the inventory backlogs of the post-COVID period.

As a final value-add, AVB and its vendors are boosting the match funding on marketing and MTEQ bundles for Black Friday/Q4 and Q1 2024 as part of the group’s Stampede offer at Convention, along with special holiday margin enhancements on appliances. “We are making it easier and more affordable than ever to sign up,” White said.

YSN publisher AVB BrandSource is the nation’s largest merchandising and marketing co-op for independent appliance, mattress, furniture and CE dealers.

Upcoming Events