Retail Observer

MAY 2019 RETAILOBSERVER.COM 61 Ristow was a key component of the Plaza makeover, Nowacki said, taking part in planning meetings, being on-site during the three-day project and helping out with every aspect of the work, including making repeated runs to the hardware store for materials. "You have the CEO of your group moving vignettes, painting, he's pushing a broom," Nowacki said. "You're thinking, my God, if he's working this hard for you, you've got to work hard." BrandSource President Tom Bennett said the AVB Makeover program is a natural extension of the work that has already been done on digital marketing and promoting members' online presence. "The first thing we believe people need to invest in is a website," Bennett said. "What can be next? We're going to go from clicks to bricks – we need to get the stores up to par. We believe customers should have that same experience when they pull into the parking lot. We have best-in-class websites now, and we now need to have a best-in-class store experience." Tammey Nowacki, who has worked in her family's business since a kid, said Ristow, Mark Baird and the AVB Makeover crew provided invaluable help in planning, building and perfecting the new store. "Jim walked in and said, 'You should have a vignette here, and something else there,'" she said. "It opens your eyes to what we should be doing. We should've been doing it a long time ago." The biggest change at Plaza was moving the customer service desk from the back wall to the front of the showroom, where customers can't miss it and where employees are happy to be near the big windows. That department was replaced by a new TV and electronics section, overseen by eldest brother Dave Motz. "Every time I walked into the store I just had that blah feeling," Motz said of the pre-makeover showroom. "The TV section was enclosed in the corner. If you didn't walk over to that area, you didn't really know we had electronics." As part of the makeover, Plaza started using AVB TV to wire the electronics and appliance areas for HDMI, and they now run video content relevant to the brands they sell. "It was way easier than I thought it would be," Motz said. "You click on the brands you want featured, and a day later it takes off." "In our area Sears stores are gone, and you really have to step up your store presence," he said. "This remake puts you on par with the big-box stores, and you really have to do that for your customers. They tell their neighbors, they tell their friends, and I think that's what we were missing. I hardly liked going over there, and now I don't want to leave." Tammey Nowacki said that in contrast with the previous showroom, the cabinets and vignettes are now built with the future in mind. "It will be easy to take things apart and replace them so the store can stay fresh, and it won't take a construction crew three days — it was because of the expertise that AVB brought to the project." "It really is about the members," she said. "We feel it. We're in the right group." Andy Kriege General Manager of Communications AVB/BrandSource RO Plaza TV and Appliance AFTER

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