Five new retailers will join this month a new program that puts a Focal home audio store-within-a-store in car audio shops.
Ten to 15 dealers should be signed on to the program by the end of the year, said Focal during the SEMA show. The dealers join Mobile Toys in TX, the first to create a “Focal by Naim” store within a car audio shop. (There are many Focal by Naim store sections in home audio shops, but this is the first US program for car audio shops).
The Focal by Naim program (Naim is a Focal brand) is a way for car audio stores to get their feet wet in the home audio category with simple, self-installed or no-install products. Many retailers say “they don’t have enough employees, so now they can expand their business without more employees,” said Nalaka Adikari, Sales Director at Orca Design & Mfg, which distributes Focal. “They’ve already sold the customers Focal in the car,” so the idea is to introduce them to Focal in the home, he said.
Mobile Toys-Chris Pate in Texas, plans to open an elaborate Focal by Naim store within a store around January. For most dealers, the program requires a $7,500 investment and a 10 by 10-foot area in the showroom. Focal provides displays and training and is helping initial dealers run customer appreciation nights to introduce the new home products to their clientel.
The products, on display offsite during the SEMA Show this week, include a pair of floor standing speakers, a pair of book shelf speakers, an amplifier, a headphone amplifier, a self-contained wireless audio system, an audio cube, a subwoofer and a selection of headphones.
Music can be streamed from a service such as TIDAL to the components from a phone for demonstration. And through an app, the customer can configure the system so it plays in various rooms in the house.
About half of Focal customers are interested in joining the program, said Adikari, but Focal by Naim is deliberately being slowly rolled out to make sure dealers are trained in product and marketing.
Among the Focal by Naim products are the Mu-so self-contained 3-way wireless system with built-in digital signal processing. It can stream from tablets, USB sticks, phones and MP3 players. A smaller cube version, called the Mu-so Qb is also available.
There is also a Unity headphone amplifier/server. Users plug in their headphones and they can connect the system to WiFi for streaming from services including Apple Music, Deezer, Spotify, Qobuz and TIDAL.
Details on pricing will follow.
