Shining Light on the Industry

In 2012, regional dealers fought against online competitors on both pricing and tax issues, struggled to increase average ticket prices on profitless TV sales, and wrangled with a struggling economy that kept many of their customers in a financial vice grip.

But they didn’t take these challenges sitting down. They changed their product mixes, improved marketing and merchandising strategies, increased profit-rich service offerings, and embraced new training initiatives by some vendors who are showing a renewed appreciation for regional consumer electronics and appliance dealers.

2013 won’t be much easier, but the dealers we recently spoke with felt the changes and strategies they deployed last year will help them forge ahead.

Here’s what they had to say.

Dealerscope: What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome this year, and how did you do it?