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Accessories
Essential add-ons
Most retailers know that accessory sales can add
something to their bottom line – and many know they can
be a real profit opportunity if sold effectively – but how are
accessories faring in the teeth of the hardest economic
conditions for more than half a century? Stephen Delany
takes a look at what has always been considered a
lucrative consumer electronics sub-sector.
Accessories have long been hailed by For example, should a new large-
manufacturers and switched-on retailers as screen TV or upmarket DVD
the indispensable high-margin add-on for player/recorder ever be sold without an
any consumer electronics sale. But on the HDMI lead included in the price? If you
other side of the till, media hype about “rip- have just forked out hundreds of pounds
off Britain” and negative publicity generated for an item, should you really have to pay
by events such as the Competition extra to access the full performance it
Commission report on extended warranties was originally designed to give? It’s like
a few years ago have conspired to give buying a 10 megapixel digital camera that backdrop, selling in higher-value
consumers a jaundiced view of anything only gives half that resolution when using accessories with genuine benefits should
that smacks of an ‘add-on’. Is that the standard cable to transfer the images be easier than ever.”
‘essential item’ the salesperson has just to your PC: to ‘unlock’ the extra Aside from the ‘respect’ issue, the
thrown into the mix really that crucial to the resolution, you need to fork out another timing of any introduction of accessories
full enjoyment of their imminent purchase? £25 for a ‘special high-quality cable’. into a sale is certainly seen as being of
Perhaps consumers’ scepticism is crucial importance – something that Steve
A question of presentation therefore partly justified, but it does Reichert of Armour Home is keen to
Maybe it’s about presentation. There’s a big highlight the importance of retailers having emphasise: “Consumers are perfectly
difference between an item that is excellent product knowledge, and receptive to accessories that genuinely
necessary to the full enjoyment of a product introducing the concept of accessories enhance the performance or use of their
and its features from the moment of sufficiently early in the sale so the main product,” he says. “Today’s
purchase, and an enhancement that customer doesn’t feel tricked. consumer is more sophisticated and
widens a product’s usability or protects it in If consumers as a breed had become better informed than ever before, so
more extreme use – such as a pair of sceptical about the sudden mention of ‘ambushing’ him or her at the till, after
waterproof ‘sports’ headphones for an that ‘essential additional item’ just as their closing a sale for a main item, is almost
MP3 player. credit card was about to go in the always going to have a negative
chip’n’pin machine, perhaps that conclusion.”
feeling is now becoming a thing Vivanco’s Chris Moseley echoes this
of the past. view, referring to the ‘acceptability’ aspect
As Ric Stevenson, consultant of accessories: “If essentials are sold
product marketing manager for during the sale, it’s accepted. If little or no
Techlink International, declares: effort is made to sell what is needed
“I’m not sure there is a great during the main part of the sale, and the
deal of suspicion of retailers most expensive HDMI lead is offered when
these days. I feel that the high- the customer hands over their credit card,
street retailers that have endured then clearly this is unacceptable and just
the slings and arrows of this latest giving the accessory industry a bad name.
outrageous recession and When purchasing new CE products, it’s
remained in business are viewed almost always the case that extra
with more respect from ‘essential’ items are required, for example
consumers than they have an HDMI lead for a DVD player,” he says.
ever been. Against this “It’s infinitely frustrating for consumers to
Armour Q-TV2 sand
20 The Independent Electrical Retailer December 2009
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