Fairfax, Va. — Three MyerEmco executives and managers have left the company to start their own home-theater store in a former Tweeter location here.
The store, IQ Home Entertainment, is now a member of the Home Entertainment Source (HES) buying group
and is owned by David Glassman, former merchandising VP for MyerEmco. He is joined by former MyerEmco operations director Dave Wynne, who is now installation manager for IQ, and Sean Brewer, former MyerEmco regional sales manager, who is now general manger for the new store.
The group hopes to open a second store in Maryland.
After 17 years with MyerEmco, and after years of opening up new retail stores for the chain, Glassman couldn’t pass up the 12,500-square-foot ex-Tweeter location “on a real busy road” he spotted for lease, he said.
“I couldn’t resist after so many years of seeing what the opportunities are. It was an opportunity I had to take,” he said.
When reminded of the shaky economy, Glassman said, “D.C. is pretty under-stored with no Tweeter and no Circuit City, so there’s a lot of brands that haven’t got adequate representation … I don’t think the timing could be better to enter the market. There’s a hole in the market locally, and maybe a year or two from now, this would have been tougher to do.”
The store’s grand opening will be Memorial Day. Brands carried will include Samsung, OmniMount, Monster Cable, Sonos, BDI and Monitor Audio
Glassman’s strategy is to offer best in class salesmanship and merchandising. Unlike a chain store, which tends to focus on a few high performing locations, “we’ll always have our best people waiting on the customers in our best store with our best displays,” he said.
Another strategy is wide assortment. “A lot of little stores don’t satisfy customer expectation for stocking everything in the category. We’re going to a have a pretty broad assortment … from entry-level TV to very high end,” he said.
