AVB’s John White walks attendees through the latest online enhancements to keep BrandSource members competitive.
New online tools and tactics to get the price message across
By Alan Wolf, YSN
In today’s hyper-competitive environment, where 90% of consumers start their shopping journey online, duress purchases dominate, and price and delivery speed are paramount, appliance dealers’ websites must emphasize promotions to drive traffic and sales.
That was the admonition from AVB CMO John White, who warned members in his Convention address on Monday that “The last thing a customer wants to see is dull messages when they get to a site.”
To help convey a promotional stance, and dispel the false notion that independents can’t compete on price, AVB Marketing (AVBM) can provide and post promotional banners on the homepages of member sites at no cost, and link the banners to merchandise that’s pre-sorted by the lowest available price. “You’ll lose customers faster if you’re not talking about a sale,” White said.
Bundle Up
White also urged members to take advantage of the group’s quarterly holiday marketing bundles, especially around the all-important Black November/Black Friday window, which are funded in part by AVB matching money. “This is kind of the foundation of anybody’s marketing strategy on their website,” he said.
Another important tool: an integrated point-of-sale system (POS), which allows dealers to eliminate manual exports and imports and communicate inventory availability and pricing to customers. “You have to communicate these things because no price to a consumer equals high price,” White said. “Having an integrated POS system simply drives your business up.”
Stack Knack
In addition, AVB has tackled the problem of having to present instant and mail-in rebates separately around a product, which is confusing to customers and makes it difficult to communicate a net price.
The group’s new “Price Netter Technology” feature, a first for the independent channel, can stack both types of promotional offers in order to show the consumer a final price. The new technology will go live in October, White said, and will be loaded for members by AVBM.
Yet another new service, the Step-Up/Spotlight Strategy, is essentially an online trade-up function that suggests to customers similar models or products with additional features at a comparable or modestly higher price.
Like a salesperson’s in-store effort to direct a customer to a more feature-rich SKU for which a dealer has better inventory or obtained a better deal, the Step-Up/Spotlight Strategy will “demonstrate the expertise of a member,” White said, and will be unique to AVB when it goes live in the fourth quarter.
YSN publisher AVB BrandSource is the nation’s largest merchandising and marketing co-op for independent appliance, mattress, furniture and CE dealers.
