ONE BRAND, TWO CATEGORIES
Like its dedication to its car audio partners, Sonus Car Audio chose Directed’s Viper as its lone vehicle security line. “We even use all of their installation accessories—door lock actuators, diodes and relays,” said Williams. “Te product is great, the support is great, and we don’t get many—if any—returns.” Sonus built a custom display that
Open Door
The biggest accomplishment, according to Williams, is the company’s new build- ing, which was constructed in a field of 3-foot tall grass. “I got to watch my guys go through the absolute hell on earth that is the 60
days prior to moving where you’re trying to deal with clients, still do installs, and effectively at that point, you still have two stores,” said Williams. “You’re trying to set one up and trying to close the other one down. We set that date for Dec. 15, 2012, and we came to work 9 a.m. that day, turned on the ‘open’ sign, and every- thing was where it was supposed to be. From that time, it was like you snapped your fingers and the other store never existed. I am most proud of that.” An area where Williams wanted to improve was how inventory is tracked.
“We’re doing a better job of keeping up with things as they come in and go out because it changes so fast here,” he said. “We used to check product in by hand. Then you would enter them in the computer and take them upstairs. We changed it over to where you can do the barcode now. We just snap a picture and add them to our inventory. That makes things much faster. We gained two hours a week there. Well, that’s two hours we can work on displays or clean things up.” As for 2013, Williams’ goal is to win the magazine’s prestigious Retailer of the
Year Award again. “It would be nice to win back to back,” he said. “I was afraid that leading up to it, when we put all the stuff together and then everyone went to MERA and we won, that they would come back with this swagger.” It turns out, Williams summed, that is not the case at all. “We put that trophy up front and I told everyone: don’t say that it makes us the best — tell them what we did to earn it.
matches the store’s décor. “It’s fully interactive with remotes that cus- tomers can press to get sounds and flashing lights,” Williams added. Sonus shows only the remote controls so the customer focuses in only on the user experience. “Tat way, we can sell the customer a system based on the features they want,” he explained. Sonus uses social media to promote the security line. “We do a ton of pro- motions on Facebook and Instagram,” Williams said, adding that there’s also a banner on the store’s homepage. But Sonus gets just as many referrals directed from Directed. “When a cus- tomer calls the Directed 800 number that’s on the back of their remote con- trol, they have the option to be directly connected to the nearest Viper dealer. Tat alone drives a lot of traffic to our store,” he said. Now, Sonus is looking to add win-
dow film to its list of services, and has sent a new hire to school to learn the craft. “We’ve looked at Llumar and 3M, then our Viper rep Dave McCullough told us about Viper Window film,” said Williams. “It makes sense. We get to add a product category, but work with the same vendor we’ve already got a great relationship with. Tat’s the perfect situation.”
50 Mobile Electronics February—March 2013
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