LAS VEGAS – While the severe winter weather disrupted business for retailers and manufacturers in January and February — and continued last week in the Midwest — the Nationwide Marketing Group reported a rebound in majap order-writing in anticipation of pent-up consumer demand.
But Sam Abdelnour, Whirlpool’s North American sales VP, said it didn’t come without some hand-wringing. “A lot of dealers are saying, ‘It’s lost business, we’ll never get it back.’ But I’m telling them the big boxes didn’t get it either, and if there’s pent-up demand, it will come.”
On the CE side, distributor Jerry Satoren, DSI Systems’ CE executive VP, is looking forward to the back-half of the year when inventory availability and “affordable but not cheap” Ultra HD TVs create “a different kind of perfect storm — one of opportunity vs. misery.”
Matt Muccitelli, a principal of Park Furniture & Appliance in Altoona, Pa., recounted five or six snow days when trucks wouldn’t start and the NECO dealer was forced to close its four stores.
Following 10 percent sales gains in 2013, “we’re down this year, and weather is a lot of it,” he told TWICE.
But Muccitelli, who runs the 73-yearold majap, furniture, CE and custominstall business with his father and brother, is stoic.
“Everybody had a rough couple of months. We’re waiting to see what the spring brings.”
