For PowerHouse Its Showtime

By Steve Smith -- TWICE, 10/18/2010

ATLANTA — PowerHouse Alliance, a national group of 10 regional distributors that formed last fall, was at last month’s CEDIA Expo, here, highlighting its strengths and will do the same at International CES in January.

With the slogan, “Providing a national footprint with a local face,” executive director Dennis Holzer is marking the organization’s first year by reminding anyone who asks that the consortium’s members are well-known powerhouses in their own regions: MRI, M. Rothman, CTD, 21st Century, CED, Autoco, Wave, Mountain West, EDI and Volutone.

“Our presence here at CEDIA is a soft introduction of who we are and what we can do,” Holzer told TWICE.

PowerHouse told CEDIA attendees that its members have 32 warehouses (with two more on the way in 2011) that have 750,000 square feet of warehouse space that is a one-stop resource center for vendors and represents more than $500 million in annual sales.

At the 2011 International CES in January it will have a booth, and at that time it will unveil the lines its entire membership will be carrying. “Our members will stock, sell and support those lines,” Holzer said.

The strengths of the organization for a retailer or a custom installer are that “we are a local representative. Retailers and custom installers don’t stock completely but we can. We feature video, audio, accessories … whatever is needed to complete an installation or make a sale.”

Holzer said, “We are a ‘one-stop’ total solution in every warehouse for all categories. We offer same day shipping from every warehouse. We have a clear advantage on pricing. We are [financially] strong enough to take on national distribution.”

He added that since its members are local, “you get face to face answers and not telemarketing from a thousand miles away.”

It is Holzer’s contention that PowerHouse “provides more focus” on individual lines and product categories and “better coverage in all territories” because it is local.

Holzer said that when Power- House selects a vendor for all to support the line is carried “in depth … no one has more [SKUs] of each line than us.”

When asked about the holiday selling season and Black Friday, Holzer said his members think it will be a “hard-fought Black Friday” but won’t become a “Black November” because “no one really has accumulated the inventory to offer promotions on individual SKUs over a long period.”