World Wide Stereo Continues to Attack Retail Market on Multiple Levels to Keep Up
World Wide Stereo revamped a brick-and-mortar retail location in upscale Ardmore, Pa., from a traditional AV retail environment to a lifestyle showroom down the street, President Bob Cole told Consumer Electronics Daily. The retailer is in the process of phasing out the old store to focus on the custom side of its business, which accounts for 80 percent of revenue in that location, he said. World Wide Stereo also has an e-commerce operation that drives 60 percent of overall company business, Cole said.
To meet the needs of the Ardmore area clientele, on Philadelphia’s Main Line, World Wide Stereo downsized and redesigned, eliminating storage space “because we didn’t need it” -- and retail racks from the store design -- to make room for an experience center, technology gallery and outdoor living space, he said. The new store is 2,000 square feet versus 4,500 square feet for the old space, he said. Cole called the showroom a “template for future design,” saying “we built it so we could duplicate it.” The showroom is about “integrating electronics into your life” and reflecting the lifestyles of today’s consumer, he said. “There’s hardly anything in there that you can’t control with your iPhone,” he said. Control systems in the space are from iOS-based Savant Systems and Total Control by URC.
Inside the showroom, an upscale theater includes a Sim2 projector, Bowers & Wilkins loudspeakers and McIntosh electronics, while upscale speakers serve the kitchen vignette. “The best speakers in the house are in the kitchen, where they should be, because that’s where people live,” he said. LED lighting is used throughout the store and is controllable, along with electronic shades, by Lutron technology integrated with Savant and URC controllers. World Wide has another showroom in Hatfield, Pa., and a retail store in the Hatfield Outlet Center.
On whether World Wide Stereo might leverage its warehouse relationship with Amazon to open its own big box store, Cole said, “Absolutely not.” Aside from the “grief and aggravation” opening such a store would create, he said, “it’s important to serve our customers.” World Wide Stereo has been in business 35 years, and half its employees have been with the company over half their lives, Cole said. “The new template is just more fun,” saying having fun was why he opened World Wide 35 years ago as an audio store. Big-box retailers “aren’t having fun,” he said. “They're selling boxes but could just as easily be selling bras or soup.”
Still, making money is the top priority for the Pennsylvania retailer. The company is “significantly up on audio” but “de-emphasizing video,” Cole said. World Wide doesn’t sell cheap TVs. “You can’t make money on it,” Cole said. The retailer is making more money now than when it was just a “volume producer,” and Cole has a goal for all salespeople to be up 10 percent by year-end. Cole could afford to give up storage space from the other store since World Wide has a separate warehouse and a partnership with Amazon for warehouse space. “You know Amazon,” he said. “It'll be out the door before you hang up the phone.”
While other specialty dealers bemoan the impact Amazon has had on their business, Cole embraces what it has brought to World Wide Stereo. “There are a lot of people struggling in e-commerce,” he said, “and to them Amazon is the Antichrist.” Cole sees Amazon as a partner. “It’s like growing up in the jungle,” he said. “I'm not afraid of snakes.” He uses Amazon “to my best advantage” and doesn’t get upset “when they try to hurt me because I know that’s what they do.”