Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM MARCH 2014 40 W henever he traveled on business, my father had one goal. He wanted to learn something, buy something or do at least one new thing that, at a minimum, paid the direct expenses for the trip. When he and I went to trade shows, group meetings or vendor events my dad was on the hunt for that one great new idea, product offering, special buy or new category that made the trip worthwhile. Having a history in the car business himself, my father recognized the name "Madman" Earl Muntz. Earl was famous for his post-war car selling antics. After inventing 4-track stereo (8-track's predecessor) tape for cars, Earl looked to his hometown of Hollywood and to its silver screen for his next inspiration. Movies, he knew, succeeded because of their larger than life scale. Why not move those big screens into our living rooms? We found Earl's dark "showroom" in a basement under the main halls of the Chicago Consumer Electronics Show in 1973. Not only was the space upstairs too expensive but the floor was way too bright. Early big screens were so dim they needed to be viewed in almost complete darkness. We literally dug out the crawl space in our store to build our new big screen showroom making us one of the first to sell Muntz and Advent projection televisions. My father and Earl remained best friends sharing their fascination with the CE frontier throughout their lives. Earl even goaded my dad and I into the X-rated video business. But that's a story for another time. I remember one CES in Las Vegas in 1978 that had been pretty much a bust. There were no closeouts to buy, no new suppliers that peaked our interest and no new technology that we could pioneer. With a couple of hours to kill before our flight home, we decided to run through the small vendors displaying at the Hilton hotel next to the Convention Center. At the very back of the hall, with only a draped table instead of any kind of real booth or display, we met Andre Blay. His company, Magnetic Video, had acquired the first rights to duplicate movies for home Beta video recorders. He had only ten titles including Patton and Hello Dolly. Blay had just barely raised the $ 300,000 for the purchase of the licenses from 20th Century Fox by borrowing from his friends and family and had no working capital. His deal was straightforward. We sent him a cashier's check for 10 copies of each title—the good ones as well as the flops—and he would duplicate them and mail them to us. On a handshake, we went home, sent the check to a total stranger and became one of the first video stores in the country. Suddenly we couldn't keep VCRs in stock. We made way more money selling and then eventually renting videos than we ever did on the recorders to play them on. I keep a list of products that my dad, my brother and I pioneered in our company. We tried electric pianos and organs, Vespa motor scooters and every iteration of the earliest video recording devices--think Quasar Great Time Machine--and pre- recorded disc systems. We weren't always successful. As a consumer electronics company, our first foray into microwave ovens was a disaster and we closed out $1000 machines for $ 399. But we never stopped trying new things. So think outside the proverbial box or comfort zone. Don't assume that your customers won't buy grills, snowblowers, or riding mowers from you. Please don't tell me how many other bedding stores there already are in your market. Maybe you're destined to be the headquarters for wearable fitness devices in your market. Innovate. Do something different. Look for new markets, new products and new customers. You'll be glad you did. Elly Valas Retail Views KEEP HUNTING FOR THAT ONE NEW THING Elly Valas is the Marketing Services Director for Nationwide Marketing Group. She can be reached at elly@ellyvalas.com or at 303-316-7569. Visit her website at www.ellyvalas.com. RO

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