AV Specialists Looking to Olympics to Create Much-Needed Sales Spark

Heavy promo days in CE retailing continued this week as mass merchants and specialty dealers hope to squeeze out sales from a dry summer in which retail sales fell in June for the third consecutive month, according to Commerce Department figures. Specialty dealers Bjorn’s in San Antonio and The Sound Room in Chesterfield, Mo., are using coverage of the London Olympics, which open Friday, to draw customers into stores, while Target continued efforts to infuse a November buying mood into a parched July, tacking Cyber Monday sales this week onto Black Friday sales that ran the week before.

At hhgregg, visitors to the website Monday were directed to “Family Prices Storewide” in an effort to spur traffic. According to Jeff Pearson, senior vice president-marketing, only products not part of UPP policies were discounted on the website. Pearson would not comment on TV sales forecasts for the remainder of the year citing company policy. The company plans to run commercials during the Olympics, and will continue to “promote good values for consumers” on product pricing, he said.

TV sales have been hit particularly hard this summer (CED June 28 p1) as retailers saddled with inventory have tried to shove product out the door to make room for new products. But even 2012 models are taking price plunges. On Monday, hhgregg advertised cuts of $500 and $600 on the 47-inch and 55-inch LG Google TVs, which began shipping in May, bringing them to $1,199.99 and $1,699, respectively. Pearson didn’t respond by our deadline to questions about the aggressive pricing on Google TV.

Using the lure of pre-Christmas ad speak, Target trumpeted online “Cyber Monday” deals Monday including a 46-inch 60Hz Westinghouse 1080p TV, dropped from $579 to $409, which the retailer called a “temporary price cut,” along with an Element 50-inch 1080p 60Hz model with built-in subwoofer and soundbar that was chopped from $649 to $499. PC deals included an Acer Gateway laptop with 15.6-inch monitor and 500GB RAM, slashed $70 to $329 and a Sony Vaio 15.5-inch model with 640GB RAM, shaved $70 to $509, according to the website. A Target spokesman told us this is the third consecutive Black Friday in July online sale for Target. The event was expanded this year to two days -- Friday and Saturday -- and the chain launched a new Cyber Summer Week event the following seven days from Sunday through Saturday, both of which feature “great deals on a host of consumer electronics,” he said. Target, meanwhile, posted sales of $6.4 billion for the 5 weeks ended June 30, up 2.6 percent from $6.3 billion for the five weeks ended July 2, 2011, he said, with comp store sales up 2.1 percent.

The Sound Room in Chesterfield, Mo., was one of numerous retailers that participated in CEA’s Demo Days over the weekend. The store was the only one in the St. Louis area to participate so it received lone billing as the destination for the Demo Days event on a local newscast that picked up CEA’s PR B-roll, David Young, president, told us. Traffic was heaviest on Saturday, Young said, and the store sold its first Sharp 90-inch TV, even before it has officially started carrying the product. Young, who was irritated, along with other specialty AV dealers, when Sharp chose mass merchants as the first channel to sell the product, placed a call to Sharp last week requesting one of the 90-inch models and found, to his surprise, that the company could supply his store with two, which he has already sold prior to their arrival. Young wants one more to have on display by the time the Olympics begin Friday. “We have customers that can write a $10,000 check for one,” said the specialty AV dealer. “The big box stores don’t."

At Bjorn’s in San Antonio, the retailer sent out an email blast Monday announcing “gold, silver and bronze” discounts from Monday through July 31 on TVs, subwoofers, speakers, outdoor speakers, headphones, AV receivers, soundbars, portable music systems, in-wall speakers and furniture. The gold deal in LED TVs is $1,800 off a Sony 65-inch model, bringing it to $2,699, and the silver deal is $1,100 off a Sony 60-inch model with a free flush mount, bringing it just under $2,000, Kris Dybdahl, IT and marketing manager, told us. The bronze deal is $400 off a Toshiba 47-inch model that’s sale priced at $1,199, Dybdahl said. Products were chosen according to “what we could make the most margin on,” Dybdahl said.

Dybdahl is still noodling around promotions around the Olympics, which he will announce with an email blast. He plans to take advantage of 3D events shown on 3D channels for in-store demos. A coup for the store would be its first 3D commercial, which would be a generic branding spot, Dybdahl said. “We've been first in so many other things,” he said, that “that’s just a natural.” The store is waiting to hear whether the 3D channels would run a Bjorn’s commercial before taking on the task of producing it, he said.