Regarding the Retailer

2|25|2010

He’s the blogger behind COPTool.com – a tool blog that’s well worth your time.

Jay is also one of the founding fathers of the Columbus Power Tool Drag Races – which is exactly what it sounds like, Frankensteined power tool vehicles racing head-to-head.

In his day job, Jay is the director of marketing for Ohio Power Tool, a family-owned distributor headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.

We had the chance to chat with Jay recently to learn about issues affecting the retail channel and what brands can do to help the tail end of their sales funnel.

How important are brands to the retailer?

Very important. Our Ohio Power Tool’s brand is defined by the brands we sell. We want customers to associate us with quality products and quality service. That’s why we don’t sell refurbished tools, and we only sell the best brands. We’ll only carry the best brand of tools. We stand behind the brands we sell and offer service on everything we sell.

I think of brands as a promise of what kind of quality you deliver. If a manufacturer isn’t delivering on that promise, the retailer hears it first. If I sell a tool that under performs, my customers won’t write the manufacturer. They come to me and say, “You sold me this piece of crap.” That’s why we’re so selective of the brands we sell.

Do brands become more or less important in tough times?

Brands are always critical. What we don’t want to see is someone diminishing their brand by manufacturing a cheaper product simply to meet a lower price point during a poor economy. You may see a sales spike, but what happens when the economy recovers and you want to convince customers that you still stand for quality products? If you want to sell a cheaper product, consider a new sub-brand so you don’t tarnish your established brand’s image.

Is a rebound on the horizon?

That’s what our business is pointing towards. Last year, we saw a pretty big decline in the purchase of new tools, and then our repair business took a nosedive. Guys were telling us that they had broken tools but didn’t need them repaired due to their workload. Now that’s turning around. We have customers bringing in 10-12 tools at a time in need of repair because they’ve got projects to work on. Things are looking up.

What could manufacturers do to help your business?

I would love some help in the marketing department. Then again, I don’t want to see my competition improve there. Distributors don’t typically have time to work with printers and designers to produce promotional pieces.It would be great to see a manufacturer create a marketing tool that lets us include more than just our logo and phone number. I know this might be a challenge, but it would help.

Another thing that would help is more focus in their own marketing. The better informed the consumer is, the easier it is for me to make a sale. The best-case scenario is a customer comes into our showroom asking for a tool by name, and he already knows the product benefits. Bosch did a great job with their DareDevil^™ Spade Bits. It’s rare to have a brand preference in the spade bit category, but we had customers asking for them by name.

We’re also interested in anything that can improve our showroom and help us better display their product. So big, interactive displays are appreciated and affective. Even the no-brainer items like fresh counter cards are good because they tend to get mucked up pretty fast.

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