Rent-to-own News - New Nationwide, Funai partnership strengthens independents' edge

Doug Schatz, Vice President of Electronics Merchandising for NMG with Ernie Padalino, President & COO of Funai.

At PrimeTime! in National Harbor, Nationwide Marketing Group rolled out their exclusive program with Funai Corporation. The new program will offer Nationwide Members a good, better, best strategy on Funai’s popular line of Sylvania, Phillips and Magnavox consumer electronics products.

Mike Decker, Senior Vice President of Electronics Marketing, explained the importance of their new partnership with Funai, “for a short period there was a shortage in inventory from Tier 1 manufacturers that provided opening retail price points used to drive traffic into our Members’ stores. Without these lower priced product offerings, our Members were challenged getting customers into their doors.”

Doug Schatz, Vice President of Electronics Merchandising, explained the value of this new partnership to their Members, “This exclusive Nationwide program allows the independent dealer to enjoy the benefits of a factory direct relationship, while buying in quantities appropriate for their business. The ability to source three strong brands from one vendor makes this program even more compelling.”

Decker continued, “Nationwide needed to find a viable option to promote and attract new customer traffic. Our partnership with Fuani not only satisfied that need but has also given our Members much better and more competitive prices points then they had before.” 

According to Ernie Padalino, President & COO of Funai, independent dealers sometimes find it tough to meet freight requirements. However, because they are a manufacturer, Funai can ship directly to the dealer. So Nationwide dealers can now combine shipments of all three Fuani brands for lower, or usually no, shipping costs.

“Looking at the retail climate, we realized that we had a void that needed to be filled and found that Nationwide represented the best group of independent dealers to fill that void and help grow our brand’s sales and marketing efforts.” said Padalino. “The reception at PrimeTime! was excellent, we signed up a lot of new dealers and look forward to growing within the independent channel through our new partnership with Nationwide.”

For information about the many benefits of membership with Nationwide Marketing Group, including an invitation to the upcoming Primetime! buying show and conference in Las Vegas, visit www.nationwidemarketinggroup.org