What If Radio Shack Becomes Best Buy Mobile?
- Mar
- 26
THIS IS AN EXCERPT. TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE, CLICK ON THE TITLE:
So the rumor is out there – Radio Shack could be on the market, and Best Buy’s name has been tossed out as a suitor – we wanted to share our perspective on what it could mean. Best Buy and other retailers are known to be taking learnings from European Retail and applying them in the US. Best Buy’s own acquisition of Carphone Warehouse in the UK in 2008 could serve as a model for a potential acquisition of Radio Shack. While there are approximately 61 Best Buy Mobile stand alone stores in the US today, there are over 6,000 Radio Shack locations when you combine company owned stores, franchies, and wireless kiosks.
read moreYou Can Be Skeptical of MagicJack – But Not How They Got Retail Leverage
- Jan
- 06
THIS IS AN EXCERPT; TO READ FULL ARTICLE, CLICK ON TITLE.
SUMMARY:
MAGICJACK: RETAIL AND DIRECT IN PERFECT HARMONY:
So you might ask yourself wasn’t MagicJack giving up something by tagging retailers, effectively pointing potential customers to stores?
Well they can start dialing back their Direct Response spend, or at least keep it flat. Plus after 2-3 years of hitting the airwaves hard with the same product, there are diminishing margins of return on the number of people who will buy your product direct. Chances are they saw the ad – if they were going to buy it direct they would have done so already.
Retail represents an untapped market. There are people who won’t buy direct, or maybe never even saw it on TV. And there is a good chance the retail margin they’ll pay is probably close to the cost per order to sell direct (media costs + fulfillment.
LESSONS LEARNED:
1A) Infomercials are a great vehicle for telling a story and building demand at retail.
1B) Marketers with a holier than thou attitude towards Direct Response TV (DRTV) are ignoring a viable tactic.
2) Take risk away from the retail buyer. This makes it easier for them to list / support your product. MagicJack wouldn’t be at retail if they didn’t have a success story from their direct experience, as well as ongoing aircover in the form of their DRTV spots they continue to run that in effect are ads for their retail placements.
3) There is less risk in balancing a direct and retail strategy than ever before. The battle lines have been blurred by retail consolidation, and the growth of private label. I don’t think the retail buyer spends much time worrying about where you are selling your product, as long as it is selling well in their stores. We spend way too much time worrying about who we compete against, versus just selling.
read more
