Retail Observer

OCTOBER 2021 RETAILOBSERVER.COM 11 million to $100 million [annual revenue] dealers," he said during a 2006 interview. "You didn't find many $40 million dealers; it didn't exist. It was very clear to us that we had to form another organization that serviced dealers in the next level down." So, in 1974, Kelly and Weisner formed another group, the Southeastern Businessman's Association (SEBA), for dealers generating between $5 and $30 million annually. Kelly and Weisner brought SEBA into Nationwide as a member in a move that was a foretelling of how Nationwide would really grow with regional members. "From there, we took off," Kelly says. The 1980s saw continued success with new member and new vendor relationships. The group began developing new offerings and negotiating more aggressive purchasing programs while continuing to help independent business owners solve new retail challenges. They brought in new vendor partners with RCA in 1981, followed by GE in 1982. Then, Whirlpool came on in 1989. A NEW PARTNERSHIP AMONG THE FOUNDERS As both NTAA and SEBA greatly expanded in the 1990s, Kelly and Weisner sold the family retail business and its rent-to-own chain to concentrate on SEBA full-time. All along, SEBA and NTAA were holding separate, twice-yearly meetings. In 1992, realizing an opportunity to become more efficient, NTAA and SEBA merged to become the new Nationwide TV & Appliance with 135 total members. SEBA went away as an entity, but the merger's influx of smaller dealers had its fallout among Nationwide's larger members. In the end, P.C. Richard & Son and H.H. Gregg ultimately left Nationwide and joined the NATM Buying Corporation. After the merger of NTAA and SEBA, the group placed greater focus on efficiency and synchronization and hosted their first combined meeting, Partners in Profit, in Orlando in 1992. The event would bring together members and vendors, as well as training and learning opportunities, and they would convene again in August in Dallas under the new moniker, PrimeTime, a name – and an event – that lives on today. 1990S: NEW SERVICES AND MEMBER GROWTH By the 1990s, the organization's focus shifted beyond leveraging its scale for better pricing and distribution and into forward-thinking services that helped members optimize their back-end retail operations, drive more traffic into their stores and increase profitability. Weisner says he and Kelly noticed that independent retailers were in need of services other than purchasing, and so the group began branching out, first into financial services, and later into training. "The evolution really began in the early 1990s and then became even more prevalent as we got into 2000 and beyond," he says.

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