Page 7 - NECO News

NEW PARTNERSHIPS
• The NECO Alliance left NMG and formed a new and exciting partnership with AVB for furniture, bed- ding and consumer finance.
• Improved relationship with appliance vendors by standing alone with no national group affiliation. This makes us faster and stronger.
• Forged a new alliance with Citi-Financial with discounted rates and first ever consumer rebates for new sign ups.
NEW INITIATIVES
• The NECO portal — the first web application for in- formation across all NECO chapters — was launched. This is one global site where all the NECO Alliance
dealers can go to get their rebates and programs.
• Also launched: NECO digital, which provides deal- ers who have invested in digital platforms a chance to compete with national accounts like never before.
Our dealers can now have the same type of digi- tal marketing exposure that big national companies have, leveling the playing field for our members.
• NECO TV, an exciting and interactive way to stream vendor and dealer content to dealer stores with co-op reimbursement capabilities, was introduced.
This is a new platform for in-store promotions, and sales training, and will have its own unique content soon!
NEW PROFIT OPPORTUNITIES
• NECO rebate values increased and each promo- tion ran for 30 days making NECO the ONLY appli- ance channel that had 365 days of constant rebates!
• NECO Alliance increased margins with an im- proved plan to sell model programs, especially during margin compressed holiday periods.
• NECO worked with vendors to lower prices on numerous products which helped increase every- day margin values and help to offset margin com- pression during manufacturer IR periods.
NEW SHOW EXPERIENCE
• The first ever “NECO Kick Off” event was held at Foxwoods with vendor and guest speaker presenta- tions, plus more training classes for dealers. Foxwood 2016 attendance was up 30% over 2015.
• Included displays from new vendors like Serta, Sealy, and ProSource, plus furniture, finance com- panies and others to broaden dealers’ profit-mak- ing ability.
• New dealer-training classes were offered to help educate and strengthen businesses. Topics included employment laws, succession planning, digital mar- keting, web sites, digital reputation management, NECO TV and more!
JOHN GRAFF
Merchandising Director IAC
LENNY HERZBRUN
Merchandising Supervisor DMI
JERRY GRASSO
Merchandising Director ADC
KEN MIELE
Executive Director ADC
ROBERT BALZANO
Executive Director of Merchandising NEAG
MORE TO COME FOR 2017, WE ARE JUST GETTING STARTED!