Case Study: Merchandising Solutions

In 1995, MobileCom opened its first store in Delaware with 8 employees. Today, the company employs more than 160 people and continues to open new storefronts, as pictured here, in various locations nationwide.

Small Retailer Gets Big Results With TESSCO Accessories and Merchandising Solutions

TESSCO offers strategic, tailored solutions that turn MobileCom, a home-grown business, into a leading Authorized Agent for Cingular Wireless.

Background

Mobile Communications, Inc. (MobileCom) opened its doors for business in 1995 as a small, family-oriented cellular phone retailer in Wilmington, Delaware. Today, the company has grown to 45 mall in-line stores, mall kiosks, and large strip center locations throughout Delaware, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and South Carolina – to become one of the country’s most successful Authorized Agents for Cingular Wireless.

Challenge

At its inception, MobileCom enjoyed reasonable success by providing customers with activation services and cellular phones. However, the company soon recognized that prevailing in a competitive wireless marketplace would require more than phones, their activation, and face plate sales. And with new applications and products introduced everyday, the technologies within the wireless industry were becoming increasingly complex – particularly for smaller business owners in the face of larger competition.

To keep up with the staggering advancements in the wireless industry, and to meet and ideally exceed the growing expectations of their customers, Chief Operating Officer, Paranj Patel, and his business partners at MobileCom, Jeff Erni and Arnie Dunn, started investigating solutions that could help improve their company's position and profile in the wireless arena.  Looking for a single source provider to support MobileCom with their marketing and merchandising proved more difficult than anticipated.

The team grew frustrated with the mentality of most suppliers that strive to provide retailers with the cheapest products, rather than with value-added solutions. It was then that MobileCom executives met the TESSCO team at a Cingular Wireless Road Show. With demonstrated expertise in wireless consultation, design and implementation, as well as product sales and service, it became clear that TESSCO was poised to deliver wireless accessories and merchandising solutions for this retailer in obvious need of enhancement and innovation.

In addition to cellular phone accessories, BlackBerry and iPod products, wireless coverage solutions and merchandising programs, TESSCO educated MobileCom on the strategic solutions that could increase sales and profitability, while lowering inventory levels. A relationship between MobileCom and TESSCO was imminent, and soon after their introduction, the Cingular Wireless Authorized Agent became a value-added retailer for TESSCO.

Methodology

As a new TESSCO retailer, MobileCom immediately started to benefit from an impressive portfolio of the newest wireless device accessories from a wide variety of manufacturers such as Motorola and Nokia. Concurrently, Mr. Patel began working closely with his dedicated team from TESSCO to initiate focus on in-store marketing and adopt merchandising strategies – that would drive more traffic to his store, and improve each customer’s experience.

After a thorough analysis of MobileCom’s business situation, TESSCO concluded that the company needed to boost sales based on the latest industry trends and developments that showed a drastically increased demand for wireless device accessories. TESSCO then configured a tailored program to specifically drive accessory sales through an effective and compelling Accessory Sales System.

With its strategic matrix selection design, TESSCO’s innovative Accessory Sales System is proven to drive impulse and multiple purchases by uniquely enabling a consumer to easily identify their Cingular Wireless phone and the various accessory products available for each type. TESSCO’s extensive line of quality-engineered and tested accessory displays supported MobileCom’s phone models, as well as their complementing accessories such as batteries, vehicle power adapters, hands-free components, carrying solutions, travel chargers, and other accessories unique to Cingular Wireless.

MobileCom’s new Accessory Sales System displays were Cingular Wireless-branded, and included stimulating graphics that allured customers, and educational information that promoted cross-sell. Complete systems were made available to them in various models such as wall displays, floor stands, and countertop spinners – allowing for a variety of marketing and branding options.

With its strategic matrix selection and alluring design, a wall display, as pictured above, enables customers to easily identify their Cingular Wireless phones and other accessory products available for each type.

With this proactive approach to merchandising, MobileCom began moving out of mediocrity and into a more powerful, savvy business position in which positive sales results and customer feedback became increasingly noticeable. MobileCom’s associations with TESSCO and Cingular Wireless were paying off – offering more credibility to the products and inspiring cross- and repeat selling.

Among employees and managers within the MobileCom organization, encouraging, conclusive changes were becoming evident through the streamlining of business processes. The Accessory Sales System displays were designed to help MobileCom easily determine when new product orders should be placed, or when products were not selling as expected – in turn, safeguarding the company’s inventory. MobileCom currently enjoys the ease of ordering with TESSCO and takes advantage of the opportunity to ship products directly to each location nationwide.

Results

“Starting out as a small and humble business with 8 employees, in an industry with significant competition, I never pictured that mobile device accessories would have such an impact on our company, but it has become the core of our business,” explains Paranj Patel, MobileCom’s chief operating officer.  “TESSCO’s strategic, tailored merchandising programs have enabled us to maximize our performance and our profits. In fact, our accessory attach rates have more than doubled, while our operational efficiency has significantly increased.”

TESSCO’s mobile accessories and merchandising solutions have had an immediate and enduring impact, enabling MobileCom to experience benefits ranging from reduced inventory costs, enhanced productivity, increased revenue, and greater customer loyalty. Quantifiable results include:

• Improved inventory that enables MobileCom to better understand customer purchasing habits, anticipate needs, and ensure that the products they want to buy are available when and how they need them.
• MobileCom maintains a competitive advantage by providing superior customer support and experience at the time of both sell and cross-sell.
• Improved customer service with value-added merchandising that appealed to the consumers – making the shopping/browsing experience more enjoyable and organized.
• Increased ability to attract and retain customers – by having the tools and resources to satisfy customers before, during, and after the sale.
• Improved productivity in the areas of scheduling, product placement, shelving, stocking, and information access.
• Organized store locations and simplified the ordering process.
• The company has grown to more than 160 employees and sells more than 7,000 mobile accessories on average per month.
• Accessory sales per month exceed $160,000.
• In the company’s Philadelphia market, the ratio of average accessory purchase to opportunity increased from 30% to 110%; 235% to new activations.
• In the Ohio market, the ratio of average accessory purchase to opportunity increased from 60% to 120%; 245% to new activations.
• In the Florida market, the ratio of average accessory purchase to opportunity started at more than 200% with the initial use of the TESSCO displays.
• MobileCom continues to improve the breadth of their product offerings and knowledge of the ever-changing wireless industry by receiving TESSCO’s monthly electronic newsletter that highlights the latest and most critical products, programs and solutions for retailers.

 

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