I recently caught up with RowOne CEO Todd Girdis to talk about why no dealer should lose the entertainment/home theater seating sale to a furniture store and how RowOne is being referred to as, “the vendor brand launch success story of the pandemic year!” Part 2 (Part 1 Here)
Maureen Jenson: What types of benefits and incentives does RowOne offer new dealers signing up?
Todd Girdis: We believe it is incredibly important for consumers to touch, feel and play with furniture in making their home entertainment and home theater choices. We generally offer a display incentive to CI/CE retailers that have a showroom available to display our products. When a retailer agrees to display our products on their showroom floor, we will provide them a swatch book of all the different coverings at no charge. All authorized retailers are included in our referral program so that when homeowners call us, we ask where they live, and we refer that business to the closest available retailers to that geography.
MJ: What about retailer support? How do you go above and beyond to support your CI/CE retailers?
TG: We fully back our products for one-year with a bumper-to-bumper warranty (can’t help the bumper-to -bumper description, I’m from Detroit, the automobile capital of the US!). And we provide 3-years on motors and mechanisms.
We are also the only home entertainment seating company in the channel that is stocking inventory. This means we can reach any retailer in the Continental US within 7-10 business days and any residence in 15-20 days. This is going above and beyond to ensure our CI/CE dealer’s success in a very competitive market of home entertainment/home theater seating. There is no reason a dealer should lose the home entertainment seating / home theater seating sale to a furniture store!
RowOne Seating install courtesy of HTSA dealer Gramophone, Maryland
We just launched a new fully mobile-optimized website with a dealer login portal (upcoming) to make placing and tracking orders easy. This portal will also provide access to Audio Advice’s Home Theater Designer Tool which enables dealers to spec-in audio, video and seating into their rooms with gear configurations and room dimensions responding in real-time (very cool!). The tool incorporates all our Revolution seating designs and we are the only seating company featured in it.
MJ: Any great dealer or distribution success stories you would like to share with our readers?
TG: We have several big announcements!
This month RowOne began doing business with Best Buy. Initially 152 US Magnolia Home Theater In-Store showrooms have put our Direct Collection entry-level Galaxy II and step-up level Prestige chair styles on display with additional stores being added in the future. Best Buy offers the industry-lead CE/CI brands and their Magnolia Home Theater staff are experts in technologies and trends. Having been fully vetted to meet the stringent requirements of this #1 CI/CE retailer, we are very proud to be approved as a vendor partner.
Another success story is noted HTSA association North Carolina-based home theater retailer/integrator Audio Advice. They started out as a small display retailer for us and in 2018 expanded to become a gallery retailer of ours. This led to their decision in 2019 to increase sales and begin to purchase large inventories from us.
On the distribution side of things, we have two exciting announcements. We just entered into an agreement with the Nationwide Marketing Group giving their 250+ Home Technology Specialists Nationwide (HTSN) division dealers access to our seating. We also inked a distribution deal with Next Level Distribution (formerly Audio America) as part of their expansion phase into home entertainment seating.
These deals are in addition to the great progress we have been making with our HTSA, AiN Group and AVB/BrandSource programs here. In less than 6-months’ time we have shipped hundreds of recliners. I don’t know of any other CE/CI channel vendor that launched during this tumultuous year that is exhibiting the kind of success that RowOne is! We are being referred to by our partners as “the vendor brand launch success story of the pandemic year!”
MJ: What silver lining do you see for our industry during the time of Coronavirus?
TG: Because of the ‘stay at home orders’ and related ‘cocooning at home’ across the majority of the nation, the CI/CE industry has enjoyed incredible sales of outdoor home entertainment.
Because of the next surge in COVID-19 cases and cooler outdoor temperatures across most of the USA, consumers essentially are now more than ever advised to stay at home and indoors. Many of the CI/CE channel retailers have been in business for more than 10 years – there’s never been a better time for them to examine their sales history for opportunities to upgrade existing home entertainment systems that they’ve sold. The combination of using their past database and upcoming cold weather creates the perfect storm for indoor home entertainment sales including home entertainment and home theater seating over the next few months.
MJ: Anything else you would like our readers to know about RowOne?
TG: Value, reliability, features and innovation are virtues that we focus on at RowOne.
For us, part of ‘having a vision’ means we are always looking for the next unique tech… hint: stay tuned for the next innovative features and styles from us coming this holiday season and in early 2021!
We don’t focus solely on the ‘home theater seating opportunity’ per se; we remind our dealers how the seating can be configured not only as rows for home theater seating but also configured for unique sectionals of furniture, standalone loungers and the unique features that our line can bring to their clientele.
I recently caught up with RowOne CEO Todd Girdis to talk about the RowOne relaunch, the effect of the Coronavirus on his business, and the latest product lines. Part 1.
Maureen Jenson: Congratulations on the RowOne relaunch! Tell our readers a little something about the company’s history?
Todd Girdis: 10-years ago Robert Cribbs acquired RowOne from Texas-based home theater retailer TheaterXtreme after they closed their doors. This initially established the RowOne Direct Collection of chair styles. He grew the seating collections and added wood products such as cinebars and second and third row risers.
I worked for RowOne from 2017 – 2019 as their Director of Sales and Marketing. This was an exciting time, growing the company to the point of being named a Top 5 seating brand in the 2018 CE Pro 100 Brand Analysis. We are very proud of this given the many highly recognized seating companies that have occupied the space for decades.
After a brief change in ownership, earlier this year I stepped-in to acquire the company and every day since we’ve been busy reconnecting with dealers and making refinements to several of our Direct Collection chair styles.
MJ: What prompted the relaunch and why now?
TG: Maureen, I say this all the time: I truly love this industry. I started by founding a CI/CE firm in 2001. Since those days, I also worked for manufacturers, buying groups and service providers in the CEDIA channel. When I had the opportunity to purchase RowOne I jumped at the chance. I really believe in the RowOne brand and what we bring to the CI/CE retailers. And most of all I want us to have fun doing this! We are selling a fun product – powered reliable recliners with innovative tech to consumers who want to enjoy spending time at home with family and/or friends while being entertained despite the impact to their lives as a result of COVID-19. What’s better than that?
I’m energized to continue the positive momentum that we created during my earlier leadership with the company. The message I want to share with CI/CE retailers is that we are, supporting you and providing profitable competitive home entertainment and home theater furniture styles consumers love while we assist you with specifying designs and configurations for your customers’ residence. Furthermore, there simply has not been a better time to present furniture seating solutions in years. This due to the cooler outdoor temperatures and the desire of consumers to have indoor home entertainment options for their families and friends over the next three months!
MJ: How has the Coronavirus affected your plans and how are you pushing through this unprecedented time?
TG: Well while certainly no one ever plans to re-launch a company just as a pandemic hits (said laughing); it didn’t hurt us, it maybe even helped us. I say this because for the first time in ages dealers had the time to take a deep breath and were excited to hear about the benefits to the end-results of our seating. Plus, as mentioned in the previous question, there is an unprecedented opportunity as now 3/4 of the nation is going into the cold-weather season. The indoor home theater and home entertainment season is really heating up. So, we made sure to have an ample inventory in the US and we have that in the warehouse now.
MJ: How are your product lines meeting the needs of today’s integrator?
TG: The seating styles that dealers and homeowners have come to love over the years will remain. This includes our Revolution, Prestige, Plaza II, and Galaxy II series from our RowOne Direct Collection. We’ve made some refinements here and there that dealers and homeowners love.
Prestige Seating
To the heart of your question, our mission statement is Home Entertainment with a Vision. What we are talking about with respect to “vision” is giving the integrators the seating solutions to position against the retail furniture competition. In other words doing all that we can to make sure that our seating offerings are market competitive or market unique as well as our offering other surprise and delight features so that the homeowner will purchase from the CI/CE retailer and not the furniture retailer.
For example, If you look at our seating configuration for sofas our center seat doesn’t eliminate the power recline feature where the furniture industry seating is just the opposite.
If you look at our Revolution chair style — our crown jewel of seating styles — we felt it should have something unique in the industry so we incorporated a neat feature wherein the cup holder and base rails provide a 3-step dimmable operation to improve the viewing experience so the lighting effect doesn’t impede upon the screen image.
From the standpoint of seating coverings, we upgraded our Plaza II model from a bonded leather to a polyurethane fabric because you no longer see bonded leather in the furniture industry. We don’t want our dealers to be selling product that is no longer market competitive!
Stay tuned next week as Todd and I discuss why there is no reason a dealer should lose the home entertainment seating/home theater seating sale to a furniture store! Part Two Here