Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Columns

Highly defined, highly priced

By Mark Albright , On Retail
Published September 12, 2007

After three years, luxury electronics chain Bang & Olufsenis back in the Tampa Bay area.

The sleek boutique - the 51st in the country - in Tampa's Old Hyde Park Villageis a showcase for the Danish company's latest high-definition 50-inch LCD screen TV consoles that start at $22,500. But don't be scared off that the average Bang & Olufsen boutique transaction is a $50,000 custom home theater. It also has a slick, pocket-sized universal remote that goes for $80 and a sleek, $875 aluminum cordless phone that was chic enough to land a role as a featured prop in The Devil Wears Prada.

The former B&O outlet run by Sound Advice at International Plaza was profitable, but closed after Sound Advice was acquired by now-struggling Tweeter Home Entertainment.

Bang & Olufsen split from Tweeter and sold the rights for a Tampa store and up to two more in Florida to John Kolenda. He's a St. Petersburg retail vet who cofounded Red Rabbit Video, a 10-store chain sold to Movie Gallery Inc. in 1996.

Does Kim Gravesen, B&O president for North America, who was at the store opening, see a Christmas rerun of last year's blood bath when a glut of flat-screen TVs caused prices to free fall and pushed stores to the brink?

"This year it's going to be even worse for mass-market dealers," he said.

And better for TV buyers.

Biometric caution

Consumer resistance is blamed for the slow acceptance of biometric payment cards that use finger scan measurements instead of a PIN.

A product that debuts soon at Home Depot might thaw some fears. Master Lock developed a universal SmartTouch garage door opener that uses biometric measurements rather than an access code number.

Created by bioMETRX Inc., the innards of the $100 battery-powered opener remembers and can forget, if asked the fingers of up to 20 users.

Tween plans

Retailing is a competitive jungle, an industry where many decisionmakers regard knockoffs and other stolen ideas as a form of flattery. So chains get plenty secretive about store concepts brewing in the R&D lab.

For instance, Tween Brands Inc., owners of Limited Too, the trendy mall fashion hangout for 7- to 12-year-old girls, is quietly opening a clone in the Tampa Bay area called Justice (Just for Girls). It's designed to compete with big-box stores in open-air shopping centers.

Back at HQ in New Albany, Ohio, however, Tween is working up its first chain aimed at girls and boys in the same age group. It's generically named Concept No. 3.

"The team working on it is right next to my office," said Jon Thompson, Tween Brands vice president of real estate. "They won't even tell me what they're doing."

Vests get makeover

Once Wal-Mart prepped out its workers in polo shirts, the chain rounded up the remnants of more than 1-million threadbare red or blue employee vests.

The VFW will distribute 100,000 of them as Hallmark cards tucked in "Adopt a Unit" goody bags sent to U.S. troops overseas. Other vests will be remanufactured into 5,000 lap blankets to be donated to injured soldiers at VA facilities.

Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8252.

$1,275 Price of Bang & Olufsen's Serene mobile phone. It's distinctive feature is a keyboard with "easy, intuitive operation."

$1,350 Price of the BeoSound 1, a portable music system that includes a movable loudspeaker with "exceptionally dynamic sound."

$300 Price of the leather case for the BeoSound 2, a digital music player. The player costs $460.

Whose voice do you want to hear?

Mass retailers continue prodding customers to ring up their own purchases with self-service checkout lanes. And shoppers have little choice as stores staff fewer registers. So the self-service tech gurus at IHL Consulting in Franklin, Tenn., asked shoppers what voice on recorded instructions would make them more likely to shift to self-service:

21 percent: Tom Brokaw or Walter Cronkite

13 percent: Don LaFontaine, the booming movie trailer voice("In a world where apples cost 99 cents a pound...")

12 percent: Darth Vader

[Last modified September 11, 2007, 22:37:05]