Clare Controls Straddles Custom and DIY Markets; Offers Dealers New Revenue Streams
Consumer purchasing portal, HEOS integration, expansion of builder program on Clare’s CEDIA 2016 to-do list.
Finding a way to successfully straddle the custom and DIY market has been one of the biggest challenges for manufacturers of home systems. Clare Controls thinks it may have the winning formula.
The manufacturer of customizable home systems continues to broaden its portfolio of Z-Wave compatible accessories, many of which are able to be installed and configured by do-it-yourselfers. With the launch of its new RMR (recurring monthly revenue) program, owners of a professionally installed Clare Controls system can purchase additional DIY-friendly products directly from the online consumer portal on the Clare website.
Products are shipped directly to the customer; the dealer never needs to be involved, but receives a portion of the sale.
“We built this sales portal for our Clare dealers to relieve them from some of the burden of small post-installation add-ons, and it generates incremental revenue on top of the RMR,” says Delia Hansen, Clare Controls vice president of marketing. “We’ve identified a subset of our line that is so easy to add, it’s guaranteed to give consumers a great experience.”
One of the newest lines of components to be offered on the consumer portal is the HEOS wireless music streaming system from Denon.
Learn more about Clare and other home-automation exhibitors during the free Webinar, “Julie Jacobson's Ulimate Preview of CEDIA 2016,” Sept. 7“We discontinued our own streaming audio product, replacing it with HEOS as our audio solution of choice and a part of the Clare ecosystem,” Hansen says. Clare will continue to offer Sonos in order to satisfy consumer market demand, Hansen continues. HEOS, she says, will satisfy the custom channel’s demand for an audio system that allows them to stay profitable.
In January Clare Controls announced its ClareHome Builder Program to dealers — a program that has focused primarily on high volume builders, with dealers forging successful relationships with the likes of Meritage Homes, David Weekley Homes, and AV Homes. This demographic of builder are those who construct more than 100 to 150 homes annually, says Hansen.
Building off this success, Clare will speak to dealers at CEDIA 2016 about an extension of this program, called “Select,” which focuses on collaboration of builders of lower volumes—those who build between 25-100 homes annually.
“At the very least, we want dealers to install a Clare hub into every single one of these 'Select' homes,” Hansen says. “We will be offering dealers the marketing tools to align themselves with this demographic of builders.”
