BrandSource Opens With New Programs, Offers

Steve Smith On Aug 28 2012 - 10:08am

Las Vegas – BrandSource opened its annual fall convention, here, Monday, with CEO Bob Lawrence previewing efforts that will be further detailed this morning during his keynote and the rest of the show.

In his opening remarks, Lawrence said that attendance for this year’s show is up 12 percent over last year’s Las Vegas event, and that the convention will present to members “more programs and more introductions at this one show than in the past five years put together.”

Among the programs that will be unveiled here, and were previewed by TWICE last week, are:

• * Expert Tech,  the group’s Cloud-based point-of-sale system to track sales at the store level to provide data to members and suppliers;
   
• * The outdoor category, a new, expanded category for the group that includes products such as grills, smokers, furniture, heaters, fire pits, mowers, trimmers, tractors and other related products;
   
• * an expanded selection of Shelf Source products and services that will enable BrandSource members to retrofit kitchen cabinets for customers for a $35,000 entry fee, which is low compared with other franchise programs;
   
• * LG and Samsung with their major appliances for the first time as group members and will be distributed by Expert Warehouse;
   
• * the BrandSource Dealer app, now featuring furniture products and other added features; and
   
• * Kathy Ireland at the show Wednesday, highlighting her Kathy Ireland Office line by Bush Furniture, among other BrandSource related items.
  
   

BrandSource also presented its annual 2012 Dealer Awards to 15 members by region last night.

The group also held its annual “Stampede” event last night, enabling members to buy special deals on major appliances, TVs, furniture and related products from suppliers such as GE, Bush, LG, Frigidaire, Panasonic and Toshiba.

And for fun, today BrandSource members will be able to drag race against champion John Force … with Traxxas remote control cars. The buying group is a long time sponsor of Force’s cars which feature the BrandSource logo.