World Wide Stereo Pushes Enterprise-Grade Networks in Home Office Drive

World Wide Stereo's August marketing reflects the times more than the retailer’s roots. The 41-year-old company pushed home office products, interior design and enterprise-grade networks in a Friday email encouraging customers to upgrade home tech to meet the needs of working and schooling from home during the pandemic. “We’re really just trying to expand on how we can be the best possible resource for our clients from an integrated home perspective,” emailed Chief Marketing Officer Emily Cole. Focusing on design and connectivity, the business is trying to be “as much of a one-stop-shop as possible.”

In the email, World Wide said “back to school" and "work from home" look very different this year, with kitchens and dining rooms doubling as offices. The retailer has helped customers without a dedicated home office “stage” makeshift workspaces from corners or other spaces for Zoom calls “so that there’s some semblance of professionalism and branding,” Cole said: “It’s important to cultivate the right head space for clients and staff members.”

The Philadelphia-area business is offering interior design services through local professional Kerry Udinski, whose LinkedIn profile describes her as a resource in senior living and the hospitality industry. Udinski was brought in last year, pre-COVID-19, to help customers where needed with fabric selection, furniture placement and finishes -- and to work through challenges with equipment placement or determining scale. She’s applying those services to home office, too, walking clients through options that are functional and work with their room and style, Cole said.

Interest in home office furniture at World Wide Stereo is “still fairly low,” Cole conceded, “but much of that is simply due to a lack of awareness. With a name like 'World Wide Stereo,' we’re not usually the first on someone’s list when shopping for office furniture -- but that’s simply because they don’t know what we can do.” In the email, the retailer promoted home office solutions from BDI for creating “comfortable and efficient” workspaces.

World Wide, whose resume spans custom electronics, retail and e-commerce as an Amazon seller, has had its home networks services business take off since shelter-in-place orders went into effect, said Cole. “People are feeling the pain of their crappy Wi-Fi right now, and clients are finally taking the plunge” into networking, she said. The retailer held a virtual workshop with vendor partners to educate customers on networking “since it can seem quite daunting to some.”

An enterprise-grade home network is the “backbone” of a connected home, said Cole: “You’d be hard-pressed to find a household that hasn’t been impacted by higher bandwidth demands or an increased number of connected devices." A robust network with an uninterrupted connection "is critical to an effective home office," and customers recognize that, she said.

A solid network is also a foot in the door for other projects for World Wide: “Designing and implementing a strong home network for a client, and being their resource and technology support system, lays the groundwork for a scalable, integrated smart home for years to come,” she said. A home network also supports smart lighting, shades, temperature, smart TVs, home entertainment systems and door locks, she noted.

The email promoted noise-canceling headphones from Bose, Bowers & Wilkins, JBL and Sony “to boost productivity in a busy home.” It highlighted the importance of a high-quality monitor for productivity, saying people spend as much as a third of their day in front of a computer screen. It showed 27-inch and-larger high-resolution Samsung monitors that can accommodate multiple windows and have fast refresh rates for gamers. The retailer also pushed desktop mounts for computers, phones and tablets to ensure a comfortable viewing position. To beef up PC sound, it recommended computer speakers from Audioengine, Harman Kardon and Kanto. Pitching “studio sound at home,” it said Shure mics would boost the quality of video calls and podcasts.

World Wide’s goal during the pandemic has been to serve clients the best way it can, said Cole. While home office isn’t the retailer’s “bread and butter … our shift in focus towards ways we can support a more comfortable and connected work-from-home life is our response to that.”