A/V Accessories To Get Renewed Focus

By John Laposky -- TWICE, 6/7/2010

New York - Walmart's CE revamp will dramatically expand the chain's A/V and home-theater add-on lineups.

While walkthroughs of several New York metropolitan area stores yielded limited choices in accessories categories such as flat-panel mounts and ready-to-assemble A/V furniture, the new store plans feature detailed displays of such products cross-merchandised adjacent to the TV wall, along with attachment-purchase suggestions like screen cleaners and HDMI cables.

The expansion of the chain's offerings in connected A/V and home-networking products are reflected in a more robust assortment of accessories, such as speed-rated cables, energy-saving surge protection and power products, and higher-end universal remote controls, all of which may have been represented by one or two SKUs in the past, or available only online at Walmart.com.

Brands represented include Sanus mounts, HomeTrends and Better Homes & Garden RTA furniture, Monster and Belkin cables and surge protectors, and Philips and Logitech remotes.

Adjacent to the TV department is the gaming section, which merchandises a broad variety of game controllers, gaming headphones and game cartridge storage products near interactive displays of the competing console systems from Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.