New Tivoli Audio Retail Store in Natick, Mass., is Its First

Tivoli Audio CEO Tom DeVesto is returning to the audio retailing business after a 12-year absence, the company said Tuesday. The company opened its first retail store last Friday, in the Natick Collection Mall in Natick, Mass., as a test that will likely run two or three quarters, Marketing Director Tom Stearns told us.

DeVesto, who built Cambridge Soundworks into a 30-store chain before selling it to Creative Technologies in 1998, said the test is aimed at bringing Tivoli closer to its customers and establishing direct sales in the bricks-and-mortar channel. The 800-square-foot Tivoli Audio Design Center in Natick carries 140 SKUs that line two walls of the store and fill two displays in the middle of it. The store has four employees and will likely use a mix of commissioned and hourly sales staff, DiVesto said. An Apple store is nearby.

As Tivoli embarks on its own retail storefront strategy, the Lenbrook Group will continue to distribute Tivoli products through reps to CE retailers, Tivoli and Lenbrook said. Tivoli also started a separate 24-store direct sales test Nov. 1 with Brookstone, which is carrying the company’s CD player, Model 10 clock audio system, Connector universal dock and recharging device that connects iPhone and iPod to other audio and video systems ($129) and other products. The Connector, originally scheduled for September delivery, shipped in November, Tivoli National Sales Manager Ron Sylvester said. Brookstone stores carrying Tivoli products include those in the Chicago, Dallas and Miami airports, Sylvester said. Tivoli also has a similar test with the 12-store Room and Board furniture chain, Sylvester said.

The retail test began as Tivoli redesigned and relaunched its website Nov. 20 with a goal of expanding direct sales, Stearns said. As it expands the direct business and opens its own stores, Tivoli is also mindful of avoiding competing with other retailers carrying its products, Stearns said. The standalone store gives “us an opportunity to show all the products we have and we're not competing with anybody,” Sylvester said. The closest retailer to Natick carrying Tivoli products is in Framingham, Mass., he said. Natick is about four miles from Framingham. “We have so many products and options that we have put them out in front of people,” Stearns said. Tivoli suffered a blow when its largest retailer, Tweeter Home Entertainment, which also was an investor in the company, liquidated. J&R in New York remains a major customer.

In opening its first retail store, Tivoli scaled back three, much smaller kiosks that carried its products, Sylvester said. Burlington and Cambridge, Mass., kiosks were closed during the past two or three years, but a location in the Prudential Center in Boston remains open, he said. The first kiosks opened in 2004, he said.

Meanwhile, 24-year-old architecture student Huan Miao Khoo won a Tivoli competition that featured graphics designs based on the Model 10 tabletop radio. Khoo, a Malaysian citizen working for a masters degree in architecture at the University of Sydney in Australia, received $3,000. Khoo’s design will be posted throughout the month of December on a 31-by-98-foot billboard above the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan’s Times Square. The Clear Channel billboard Tuesday was carrying a Hankook Tire ad. The design competition, which began in May, was to honor Tivoli’s 10th anniversary in business.