Is Specialty Retail’s Future ‘Extremely Lean’?

When MyerEmco announced it is shutting down it got people thinking about the future of the specialty electronics retail — a market in which regional retailers are struggling, downsizing and dropping like flies.

A day after announcing his stores’ closings, here's how Jon Myer summed up the specialty market:

“The future of every multi-store specialty retailer is extremely lean,” he said, adding that when Tweeter went under, it effectively meant the death of half of the multi-store specialty retail business in the country.

“If you are a multi-store regional specialty retailer — and there aren’t a lot of them left — you need to restructure immediately to survive.”

He cited declining product margins and “the trailing credit game that vendors are playing.” Specifically, “we pay the vendors in 30 days, but they don’t pay us for 90 days, so in essence, we are financing the equipment purchases,” Myer said.

Myer isn’t alone. Specialty retailers nationwide are struggling with a trend in which manufacturers develop products and create instant rebate policies for their high volume partners, according to Jim Ristow, executive director of buying group BrandSource’s specialty electronic leg Home Entertainment Source (HES).

Industry Reaction

We asked several folks in the industry to react to Myer's comments about the "extremely lean" future of specialty retail. Click on each name for reaction.

• Jeremy Burkhardt, SpeakerCraft
• Richard Glikes, Home Technology Specialists of America
• Jeannette Howe, Specialty Electronics Nationwide
• Rick Komendera, SurgeX
• Paul Spitale, Sony
• Adam Schmidt, Runco
• Will West, Control4
• Jim Arnold, Control4
• Jack Shafton, Paradigm
• Steven Delp, Magnolia
• David Pidgeon, Starpower
• Russell Kim, Audio Dimensions