Ultimate Audio Surpassing the Ultimate Challenge

"Our store prototype is approximately 32,000 [square feet]. We have a large footprint, and we don't see other retailers that have the store size that would display the wide range of price points and the wide selection of products that we offer. [The company currently carries 135 brand-name products, McEntire said, from over 50 vendors, including Sony, Audiovox, Clarion, Pioneer and Denon.] In our new stores, you'll see better than 50 large screen TVs, with better than half of them being DTVs or HDTVs."

With that type of dedication to the television category, you can imagine that 32,000 sq. ft. or not, something has to give and it would be impossible to treat all categories with the same fervor. So, Ultimate Electronics just doesn't sell them. Its idea, in short, is if you wipe major appliances, software, games and CDs off of your inventory, you'll be able to fully concentrate on other categories, plus free up a great deal of floor space.

It is this dedication to what McEntire calls the "core categories" of consumer electronics that, he believes, has attributed significantly to Ultimate's success.