Retailers tune into low-ticket CE accessories - consumer electronics - Home Products

Discount Store News, May 4, 1992

As the recession has cut into sales of high-ticket electronic hardware items, retailers are concentrating their efforts on lower-ticket, but higher margin accessory products. These can include high-cost items like universal and preprogrammed remote controls, amplified antennae, digital headphones, home office and computer products, and a variety of camcorder accessories, including editing devices, tripods and extra battery packs.

That's aside from the more standard line of audio and video cleaning and storage accessories, a core category among many electronics retailers.

"There's more interest now among manufacturers to develop accessories, more remote controls, and the category has become much larger." said Dave Clark, president of the seven-store Musicraft chain in Chicago. "There are more items to sell all the time. It gives you more opportunities to work with the customer."

Fewer wireless video broadcasters, one of last year's hottest products, were in evidence at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show, although Recoton added a high gain antenna and wireless remote extension products to its Room Sender line. Recoton also introduced new 900 MHz wireless audio products.

Those don't seem to be catching on with retailers. "We haven't had any success with the wireless headlines," noted Brian Carlsness, electronics buyer for the Audio King chain in Minneapolis. "Customers just anticipate that they'll sound as good as a wired headphone, and they don't. So we've kind of backed away from the category."

Despite the failure of wireless products to catch on, three-quarters of all retailers surveyed at the Summer CES said that accessory sales had/risen 24% between 1988 and 1991, which reinforces the idea that accessories are recession-proof.

The growing profitability of accessories has attracted a number of new brand name suppliers over the past year, including Philips, JVC, Fuji and TDK. And Maxell announced at the show that it was entering the accessories market with a full line of 52 after-market products, including headphones, CD care and maintenance, head cleaners, and audio/video plugs, jacks and cables.

"Home office and CD care are both taking off," noted product manager John Casey. Very hot, he said, is a compact disc that cleans the laser heads in CD players. New York's The Wiz has already stocked most of the line, and 200 accounts across the United States have signed on. "The move is to fewer vendors, but vendors that can supply an entire range of products," Casey said.

According to the Electronics Industries Association, the hottest categories last year were compact disc storage (up 17%), telephone handset cords (up 19%), and earbud headphones (up 8%). The $14 to $29 headphone category, somewhere between replacement earphones and upper-end home headphones, is a rapidly emerging sales booster. According to Memtek's Doug Matthews, these new headphones are "the more digitally oriented type headphones that will respond better to digital audio systems." Maxell's Casey noted that the company had homed in on the "under $25" market, a slot that has very little price resistance.

Koss, known primarily as an upper-end, high-performance headphone vendor, has moved into the mid-price range with a vengeance. This year, the company showed three new portable headphones in the under $25 category, as well as a like number of low-cost earbud models. All feature a no-questions-asked lifetime guarantee.

But universal remote controls--preprogrammed, learning and combined--continue to be the most asked-for accessory at retail. According to Steve Trice, president of Jasco, there will be 21 million replacement remotes sold this year, and an estimated 32 million annually through 1995. "That's pure replacement," he said, "not consolidation."

"Universal remote controls have been enormous business for us," said Audio King's Carlsness, "to the point where we're continuing to add more and more skus. We're even starting to see some customers who started out with a $29.95 or $39.95 universal remote coming back for a $150 remote control with the backlit LCD. We haven't found out how expensive we can go on that product."

At WCES, Jasco unveiled its "Quick-Set" eight function LCD remote; Recoton launched the V630 preprogrammed and V628 learning remotes; Memtek added a Memorex-branded AV8 Turbo preprogrammed controller; Gemini bowed its Rabbit-brand "Easy 3"; and Sole Control updated its three Mark II preprogrammed units to encompass controls for 35% more A/V components.

At the same time, Gemstar's VCR Plus+ video tape recorder programmer has become one of the hottest retail products in the category. The codes for the programmer are now available in over 300 U.S. newspapers and cable guides, as well as all editions of TV Guide, and the product is sold in more than 16,000 stores, according to Gemstar vice president Louise Wannier.

Another growth the category at CES was camcorder and home video accessories. Videonics officially unveiled its Video TitleMaker ($499), announced last summer. Sima countered with its own titler, the digital Screen Writer Video Movie Character Generator ($319.95). Arkon debuted a nickle-cadmium battery tester/discharger at $29.95, and Ambico showed a 15-watt bracket light, designed for camcorders without a shoe mount.