AVB CEO Jim Ristow compared members’ share gains to an increasingly competitive foot race, and cited his own underdog win in a statewide track and field event.
Those who do are winning the marketplace race
By Alan Wolf, YSN
AVB CEO Jim Ristow delivered a tale of two cities in his Convention kickoff address on Monday.
Comparing the marketplace to a race, he described an increasingly competitive landscape in which members engaged in the group’s programs and services continue to outpace the industry, while dealers who remain on the sidelines continue to lose ground.
“Our organization is turning into a group of haves vs. have nots,” he told attendees. “We have one goal while we’re here at this Convention — to make sure everyone in the room is in the haves camp.”
Wear-Out vs. Wear-In
Part of the problem: “unnatural” moves by the warehouse clubs, Ristow said, which have a lower cost structure than traditional retailers. Set against the backdrop of a challenging sales environment, in which consumers are putting off “nice to have” purchases of home goods and limiting themselves to “need to have” duress buys, box stores have responded for the past three quarters by promoting heavily.
What’s more, the national chains are wrapping some of their promotions in “buy more, save more” offers, special in-cart pricing and instant rebates, he said, and are offsetting some of the cost of these promotions by charging more for delivery, install and haul-away services.
The result is a confusing hodge-podge for customers who find it difficult to determine the true price of products, which puts independent dealers at a disadvantage.
Yet despite these challenges, BrandSource members continue to prove industry pundits wrong by outpacing their competitors and growing share. Since March alone, Ristow said, the group’s appliance dealers overall have outperformed the industry by over 12% for multiple months, while home furnishings members have been more than 7% ahead of the competition amid an especially tough furniture market.
Delta Blues
But again, those metrics don’t apply to all BrandSource members, as the “haves” — those who leverage AVB’s tools and technologies — are outperforming the “have nots” by a delta of nearly 15%, and the gap is widening.
Going forward, Ristow reiterated his advice from Summit, to pick one or two BrandSource tools or services, all of which “are designed to make you more competitive and profitable, because we need to focus on both.”
“It’s all about focus,” he concluded. “Focus on what’s happening in the market, have a simple plan and execute on that plan.” Because like any race, there’s a lot of competition out there.
YSN publisher AVB BrandSource is the nation’s largest merchandising and marketing co-op for independent appliance, mattress, furniture and CE dealers.
