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BrandSource Florida Joins Nationwide

Winston-Salem, N.C. – BrandSource Florida, a division of
BrandSource, will be moving its membership over to Nationwide Marketing Group
(NMG) as of June 1 and will continue operations under the new name, Nationwide
Florida.

This decision was made at a meeting held last week in
Orlando attended by the group’s board of directors and a majority of their
membership, Nationwide said.

This comes a day after a

BrandSource
announcement

that it is creating a new Florida region “in an effort to
better serve consumer electronics, furniture, floor covering and appliance
dealers.”

In neither buying
group reported how many individual retailers were involved in the creation of
these new divisions or what the annual sales of each group generates. But
Nationwide claimed in a statement that BrandSource Florida’s membership
“represents the majority of independent appliance buying
group dealers in Florida.”

In the most recent sales estimates of both buying groups by
TWICE in the May 2, 2011 issue BrandSource had sales CE, major appliances,
furniture and bedding of  $14 billion
annually and 4,500 members while Nationwide had combined sales of $12 billion
and 3,000 members.

Nationwide said it will now have the power of six regional
divisions servicing the independent channel across the country including NECO,
Nationwide Southwest, Nationwide West, Nation’s BrandDirect, United Stores and
Nationwide Florida.

“We are very
pleased and proud to have such a large group of successful dealers join us to
form our new Nationwide Florida division,” said Robert Weisner, CEO of
Nationwide in a statement. “We believe this will make our group a dominating
force in the state of Florida’s retail marketplace.”

For 15 years, Tom Jessup has led the BrandSource Florida
group as president. Nationwide said BrandSource Florida has a much longer
history in the region as one of the original buying organizations started
nearly 30 years ago under the Key America Group. When the breakup of Key
America Group occurred nearly a decade ago regions affiliated themselves with
other buying groups including Nationwide Marketing Group.

“We have been watching the direction and focus of Nationwide
over the past seven years and like what we have seen,” said Jessup. “We
reevaluated what we have today with AVB/BrandSource and decided along with our
board of directors and members that we would get a much higher level of service
as a division of Nationwide so decided to join their organization,” he said in
a statement from Nationwide.

 “We feel that the
autonomy we will now have running our division will only enhance our services
and translate into more opportunities for profit and sales for our membership,”
said Jessup.

Nationwide Marketing Group along will celebrate 40 years of
service at their biannual Nationwide PrimeTime! buying show and strategic
conference on August 21-24, 2011 at the Gaylord Texan in Dallas

www.nationwideprimetime.com

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