Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM MARCH 2020 50 B y the time you read this, you will have navigated the holiday quarter and will be safely in the New Year and gearing up to make 2020 your best sales year ever. Navigating the sea-change from the holiday rush to the expected Q1 doldrums doesn't have to be as daunting as the pundits would have us believe. We can get a good degree of control by reviewing the past while planning for change. According to Expert Warehouse (EW), the consumer tech distribution arm of AVB Inc., the buying organization for independent dealers, 2019 sales of Samsung TVs were coming off a major resurgence. The company came to recognize that our channel was still a powerful partner for evangelizing brands in many ways, and they took steps to solidify their place with EW. With a year of its 5-Star Solutions program for AVB affiliate ProSource under its belt, Samsung began to lay plans to launch the Retail Win Back program that helped establish a bigger base with BrandSource members and non-CE dealers of all stripes. Why did Samsung do so well? The company claimed it shipped 9.4 million TVs in Q1 2019. But here's the rub: the figure represented a quarter-over-quarter loss of 21.2 percent and a 5.8 percent decline year-over-year. This meant that while the vendor is making a jump back into 1A/1B territory with EW, it is falling behind in other channels. The competitive nature of TV sales makes this a certainty, after all. But how fast can things change? In the very next quarter Samsung recovered to ship 31.5 percent of the world's TVs! By comparison, LG Electronics' overall shipments declined 22.6 percent quarter-over-quarter in the first three months of 2019 and slipped 7.1 percent year over year, while shipping greater numbers than Samsung for the quarter. EW saw a dip in sales of LG's flagship OLED TVs in Q1 due to competition for its own panel from Sony, but in the third and fourth quarters we witnessed a massive resurrection in LG's premier line, again underlining how unpredictable the CE marketplace can be. With the changes at Sony coming to fruition, this adds more credence to the cyclical patterns of brand name rise and fall. Indeed, change is like death and taxes: it's inevitable. So, armed with a recap of last year, what can we expect in 2020? Blu-ray players from Samsung and small panels below 32 inches have pretty much disappeared. In fact, both LG and Samsung are out of small panels completely. Unfortunately, dealers will need to explore the Chinese-brand market for any small-panel needs. Quality, return issues and pricing fluctuations forced EW to leave this market in 2019, and this year does not appear any different as of this writing. While we do not have too much solid data on what will be viable in the U.S. TV market this year, we can monitor several technologies: foldable LG OLED? Samsung MicroLED, a.k.a., The Wall TV? Greater than 8K resolutions for both? The domestic economy appears to be doing well. This means commerce is flowing and people are not as restrained in their spending as they might be in tougher times. For dealers, this means you should begin soliciting and planning your customers' A/V projects. Your meetings in Q1 will bear fruit both now and after tax season, and will continue to do so into the warmer months (for those of us in cooler climes!). Stephen Paczkowski Consumer Electronic Trends Stephen Paczkowski is a Buyer/Channel Manager at Expert Warehouse, the tech distribution arm of BrandSource parent AVB Inc. RO WATCHING TV: THE EBB AND FLOW OF MARKET SHARE Expert Warehouse buyer Stephen Paczkowski demonstrating Samsung's 4K QLED TV program for BrandSource dealers.

• Cover