digimag-june-2021.dealerscope.comDealerscope DigiMag June 2021

× Content x DigiMag June 2021 Nationwide Marketing Group Pulse Voices Top 101 Retailers Retail Rumblings International Perspectives Strategy Unboxed Audio Digital Diva TV Vendor Roundtable Health & Wellness Retail On The Run Stat Shot CT Events Podcast Subscribe To Our Publications Get In Touch Masthead Menu Inside the Dealerscope June 2021 issue: Top 101 Retailers”—2020 was a challenging year for everyone, including CE retailers. Which ones came out on top? Plus, answers to the following burning questions: which YouTubers know the most about CE, how do you transform a legacy brand, and what will become of Sennheiser now that it’s part of hearing health giant Sonova? Happy reading! A WORD FROM OUR PUBLISHER Welcome to our Top 101 Retailers List It’s hard to believe that we are already in June 2021; how quickly the year flies by. I am so pleased to welcome you to the Dealerscope June issue. Our big feature is our annual Top 101 Retailers list, where we reveal the lowdown on our industry’s finest according to their performance. This is always a list that is full of great information that our staff has researched and worked hard to produce. I would love to hear your thoughts after you have gone through the rankings. We also present in this issue our annual TV Vendor Roundtable, where Contributing Editor Nancy Klosek has gathered insights from top TV brand executives on sales trends, new technologies, as well as their market approaches for this ever-changing (and now red-hot) category through the rest of this year and heading into 2022. In-house Digital Diva Jessica Guyon covers YouTube influencers and creators in the consumer electronics space, and our Digital Health and Wellness guru, Stephanie Adamow, looks at tech in the outdoor space, as we get ready to enjoy warmer weather. Our ongoing Retail on the Run column zones in on Starpower in Dallas, as we speak with David Pidgeon and take a look at his successful company. Monthly contributor John Quain covers the changes at Sennheiser, and then, reviews the new Sennheiser IE 900 earbuds, available in June and promising to set a new benchmark in portable audio. An article by Scott Hagen, the CEO of Victrola, discusses the transformation of a legacy brand. This piece offers great lessons in business strategy, and in ways to position your company and your products. As always, I want to thank you not only for being our audience, but most important, for your ongoing dedication and support. Make sure to follow our LinkedIn page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/dealerscope for the latest news on social media, and of course, our website www.dealerscope.com. Bookmark it, so you’ll always have instant access to all that’s happening in our industry in real time. Lots more exciting news is coming during our transformation at CT Lab, and I cannot wait for all of you to see it. As always, please feel free to get in touch with me at tmonteleone@ctlab.media . Tony Monteleone, Publisher A WORD FROM OUR EDITOR IN CHIEF Retail’s Wild Ride: Where Is It Headed, Post-Pandemic? With a few exceptions among the Greatest Generation, most Americans would be hard-pressed to remember a more disruptive —and transformative — year than 2020. Besides the tragic loss of more than half a million people around the globe, the once-in-a-century global pandemic wreaked havoc on almost every major industry, though the pain was not shared evenly, particularly in the retail sector. On the one hand, it’s been a retail apocalypse, magnifying trends that were already under way for many legacy stores, some of which shut their doors in 2020. (That’s why you won’t find Fry’s, Cameta Camera, or Shopko on this year’s Top 101 Retailers list on p. 34 of this month’s issue.) Even though most CE retailers, independent or otherwise, had the advantage last year of being deemed essential during lockdown periods, those that were particularly dependent on in-store purchases faced challenges. Sales of U.S. electronics in brick-and-mortar stores dropped 21.1 percent in 2020, according to Coresight Research. Those retailers that leaned into e-commerce and omnichannel strategies were able to capitalize on a pandemic-induced, 24/7 work-and-live-at-home demand for computers, networking equipment, smart devices, cleaning and cooking appliances, and health and wellness gadgets. And they did well. From March 2020 to March 2021, there was a 23 percent rise in CE sales revenue, compared to three percent for the same period a year earlier, according to NPD (one of many fun facts about CE that analysts shared with us in 2020 on p. 18). Meanwhile, even as Best Buy’s stateside in-store visits fell by 15 percent in its final 2020 quarter, the electronics retailer’s online sales in the U.S. rose by 144-percent in the fiscal year 2020, accounting for 43 percent of its sales last year. Best Buy is putting curbside BOPUS (buy online, pick up in-store) — my new favorite term-cum-acronym— at the center of its future strategy of converting most of its in-store product shelves and showroom spaces into warehouse storage for hyper-local fulfillment centers. More than 50 percent of U.S. retailers now offer some form of curbside pickup, up from just six percent at the beginning of 2020, according to Digital Commerce 360. Consumers have become accustomed to the convenience of ordering on their mobile phones or laptops, then sweeping in for a pickup. BOPIS is here to stay. And yet, people have been cooped up at home for well over a year. As vaccination levels rise and COVID case counts drop, in the U.S. at least, the need to be out among other people, even other shoppers, is not to be counted out. According to foot-traffic analyst service Almanac, Target’s in-store visits rose by 17 percent in the first quarter of this year, with a five percent increase in dollar transaction per customer (see p. 50 for more Stat Shots”). People still need help picking the right home theater system or TV, and there are still many questions about technology that anyone has, but is afraid to ask. As Starpower’s David Pidgeon confirms in our store visit on p. 29 this month, service with a smile is still nothing to be sniffed at — it might even be a winning business strategy. Tom Samiljan COVER STORY The Pros And Cons Of Pandemic-Era Retail The unprecedented challenges posed by the coronavirus in 2020 led to success stories for retailers who leaned into e-commerce and omnichannel strategies. Just a little more than a year ago, the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic forced many brick-and-mortar retailers to close their physical locations. For companies that already had or were able to pivot to e-commerce and omnichannel operations, the impact was surprisingly transformative. Companies such as Amazon and Apple were able to turn 2020 into a stronger fiscal year — both companies saw CE sales in North America more than double from the previous year — than less prepared or nimble retailers. Omnichannel-savvy brick-and-mortar stores that capitalized on digital commerce options for curbside pickup also benefited, with buy online, pick-up in-store (BOPIS) sales growing by more than 563 percent in April 2020 versus April 2019, and total online sales growing by more than 193 percent in the same period, according to client data shared by e-commerce platform provider Kibo. Big-box stores, warehouse clubs, and pharmacies, along with independent consumer electronics and major appliance dealers, were designated as essential retail” and therefore able to keep their stores open and weather the COVID storm. GameStop, for example, argued in March 2020 that its gaming products and office supplies made it an essential retailer. Department stores with mostly soft goods such as Macy’s and J.C. Penney, which closed more than 100 stores last year due to ongoing struggles exacerbated by the pandemic, were not as fortunate and had to wait longer before they could re-open. It wasn’t the only advantage consumer technology retailers...