12.20.2007 — State Street Discount is not your typical custom retailer.

The store was started in Portsmouth, N.H. back in 1955. State Street's principal, Gary Levy, says his parents started it then as a small independent TV and appliance retailer.

Today, Levy, along with and the rest of the State Street team, manage the business, but that doesn't stop his mother from making her rounds, as she's done for decades, helping to ensure all the customers are satisfied with the standards the Levy family set back in 1955.

Longstanding customer satisfaction traditions aside, however, the store reflects current market trends, especially with its newly renovated A/V department and high-end kitchen appliance showroom, which highlights several of the industry's most desired brands in today's real-world kitchen settings.

Focusing specifically on the A/V department remodel, the staff, which has been in place since 1993, knew there was an opportunity to grow the business by tapping into the affluent N.H. and Southern Maine seacoast communities.



A/V department manager and buyer Jay Hannon and longtime employee Greg Bell, State Street's facilities manager and jack-of-all-trades, managed the remodel, which was done with the assistance of Massachusetts-based specialty retail design and consultation company ImageCrafters and its president Spencer Kalker.

Just prior to the completion of the project, CE Pro Retailing asked Hannon and Bell about the remodel process and its results.

How long have you sold A/V products? Very early on we brought in video and audio. Each was set up as separate departments until 1993.

What factors caused you to consider a remodel? It had been at least 12 years since we made changes to the sales floor.

The product mix has obviously evolved and we needed to give our sales team the best opportunity to make the most out of each customer. We also have a growing custom-installation business and we wanted to be sure all our customers could experience the latest technology in real-life settings.

The most difficult decision in going ahead: It is always tough spending money when business is so challenging.

What finally pushed you over the top? We needed to make the most of the opportunity and, after meeting with Spencer [Kalker from ImageCrafters], we felt we had the right company to do it.

How did the staff respond to the project? The staff was somewhat interested, but uncertain how it would affect their sales.

How did the staff respond after the renovation? The first week after the construction, we had the best weekend in company history, and our attachments audio sales were way up. The team loves the new layout and design.

How did you finance it? We own the building and we were able to do it out of cash flow.

How long did it take? We needed to improve our electrical service, so we did that first. Then, we did the back half of the A/V department. Then, the front. Overall, the project lasted 18 months.

How much did it cost? It was reasonable, the new design really made use of what we had in place and kept the construction disruption and cost manageable. We removed some walls and added a couple of new ones, new paint, new lighting.

What might you have done differently? We should have not waited as long to start the last phase.

What did you expect to happen? [We expected it to] improve our sales teams' ability to upsell televisions and improve our add-on sales, especially audio.

Has it met your expectations? Absolutely, it is terrific. We could see, as it was happening, that every area we improved had improvements in sales. Our audio attachments are way up.

What do you need to do now? We just did it … this is what we needed.