Weekly television digest (Jan-Dec 1963)

8— TELEVISION DIGEST JANUARY 14, 1963 NAItDA Chmn. Mort Farr: "Speaking as a dealer, everytime a dealer gives away some function of his operation he gives away some of his independence. Dealers may like these sales & display plans at first because nobody shoots at Santa Clous. But if you yield servicing, financing, delivery, and warehousing, you can wind up as a salesman in your own store. Too many dealers do what is expedient without fully checking out the facts." Magnavox : "The growth & strength of our dealers," we were told, "have resulted in large port from our program of cooperative help, advertising & sales training. These services in the past hove enabled Magnavox's small dealers to be successful, make a profit, and in some case grow into large dealers. We see no reason why this should change in the future. A high percentage of our dealers ore small dealers, and we definitely do not see the discounters & big variety chains taking over." Westinghouse : "We hove not heard of any dealer in our program who has criticized it." Re charges that program will make a salesman for the company, "we hope it will. We wont him to push our merchandise and give us the best display space. Doesn't every manufacturer?" John W. Craig, vp & gen, mgr, of Westinghouse's Major Appliance Div., wrapped it up this way in speech slated for NARDA presentation Jan. 12: "From the manufacturer's viewpoint, underassortment of his line on a dealer's floor means lost sales. But the dealer may face a problem in that on assortment satisfactory to the manufacturer involves too great on investment in merchandise." Crcdg noted also that "dealer's attention from his primary function of selling" is diverted by labor, handling & warehousing problems & costs. "These experiments hopefully will enable him to emphasize selling," he said, adding : "At this point our experience is limited. Retailers apparently ore pleased with the plan. We ore not yet prepared to commit ourselves fully." GE told us pretty much same thing : "Our whole purpose is to determine if greater exposure of our line can produce more soles & a better mix, particularly at the high end of the line. Most of the dealer's problems stem from the fact that people haven't had an opportunity to see the full line. Because of lack of sp>ace & finances, not all dealers are able to display the full line." GE was emphatic : "We hove no plans to go into retailing. We wouldn't know how. The basis of our operation always has been the dealer. Our plan is to nm these test operations in these 3 cities for some length of time. After we have analyzed results, we'll be in a position to make a decision for the future." RCA Sales Corp. Mktg. vp Raymond W. Saxon told us RCA has shown "a decided increase in market penetration" in the sales <& display cities, said company always studies & evaluates changes initiated by other manufacturers but "to date these apparent changes hove only reinforced our belief in the present system of independent distribution." Although dealer's position in recent years "has been highly competitive," Saxon said, "he has survived numerous new sales programs & even predictions pertaining to his demise." He continued : "Although it appears that more & more manufacturers ore going in the direction" of bypassing small dealers in favor of discounters & big national variety chains, "we certainly hove no plans to concentrate on any category of retail outlets." • • • • Extended warranties, another simmering merchandising trend that has industry stewing, come in for full shore of pros & cons at NARDA meeting in Chicago: Philco Pres. Charles E. Beck fired opening gun Jan. 1 1 with unequivocal endorsement : "We believe that extended warranties are good for the manufacturer, distributor, dealer & the customer." He urged appliance & TV-radio dealers to help eliminate "customer confusion" about warranties, scdd Philco "would welcome" move to "standardize on some definitions that can be easily imderstood by the customer & that ore applicable on an industry-wide basis." He termed extended warranty "simply a tangible manifestation to the customer" of "our pride in the craftsmanship of our products." Philco last year increased warranty on automatic washers from 1 to 2 years (labor for 1 year), carries 1 year warranty (5 years for compressors) on balance of white line. TV carries 90-day ports, tubes & labor protection, 1 year on picture tube. Westinghouse vp & Major Appliance Div. Gen. Mgr. John W. Craig fired back Jan. 12 with attack on "warranty roulette." He told NARDA session : "I fail to see how it benefits anyone." He rapped dealer "who sells paper with fine print instead of the fine merchandise our industry offers," concluded: "this industry would be better off with a 3-month unconditional warranty than with a 5-year guarantee with 3 paragraphs of exceptions."