Alpine’s Style Centers Explained

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Alpine Style Centers

Last year Alpine Electronics launched the Alpine Style Center dealer program. It creates an Alpine “brand experience” at certain dealers.  The program is not quite a “store-within-a-store” concept, but it puts a keen focus on best-in-class sales and service for the brand.

Thirty-three dealers currently participate.  Dealer requirements include having a demo vehicle outfitted with Alpine equipment at the shop (or in the parking lot) and adhering to a best-in-class standard of customer experience, said Alpine.

Alpine Style Center Kiosk
Photo by Emron Alborno, Cartunes of Atlanta

Each Alpine Style Center dealer is provided an interactive display that can call up information on any Alpine product, essentially duplicating the Alpine website on their showroom floor.  Alpine also offsets some of the costs of product installed in the demo vehicle and supplies in store promotional material. Dealers also receive priority tech support and sales training.

The impetus behind Alpine Status Centers came from the Alpine Experience Events around the country that launched in 2018.  [These were suspended during the pandemic]. Alpine would send a demo car and a Brand Specialist to selected dealers.  Sales of Alpine product for that day could easily triple over the retailer’s every day sales and customers would continue to come in and buy in the days following. The idea was to create brand advocates with Alpine demo vehicles and a focused customer experience similar to the Alpine company tour, said Mike Anderson, AlpsAlpine Brand BU Executive Directors, North America.

NavToolDue to the pandemic, the Alpine Style Center program faced some limitations.  Dealers fought to keep up with record sales and product was scarce. Also, customers were reluctant to enter a demo car with a salesperson, for fear of COVID.

Over the coming months, that is expected to change and the program is expected to begin to take full effect.

Alpine Style Centers replaced the former Alpine Flagship Retail Specialist Program, which launched around 2011.  That program was geared to bringing in more store traffic so smaller dealers could compete more effectively with larger chains.   In contrast, the Alpine Style Centers program is designed to create a better in-store experience that is suited to modern retailing.

 

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