Channel is missing out on laptop add-on sales
Vendor claims that resellers can quadruple their margins by bundling laptop accessories
Resellers are passing up good margin opportunities by failing to push add-ons when selling laptops, accessories vendor Kensington has claimed.
Kensington told CRN that, with laptop margins typically standing between zero to four per cent, resellers can quadruple this by bundling accessories such as mice, locks, docks or cases into a sale.
George Foot, director of northern Europe at Kensington, said: “VARs must think about how to build margins back into a commoditised product.
“Just 40 per cent of our resellers are selling cases with laptops. That’s 60 per of laptops where the case is being bought elsewhere, so the reseller is losing out at the point of purchase.”
Foot said Kensington, which reaches about 500 UK resellers, typically offers partners a 40-point margin.
He added: “Too many sales people are focused on hitting sales targets while ignoring margins. There is a real opportunity to add accessories such as mice, power adaptors and locking.”
Terry Betts, managing director at VAR CCS Media, said he is poised to implement a new CRM system that would alert his sales people to push laptop accessories.
“Our hardware sales people have limited opportunities to address selling add-ons, but we’re changing our systems to encourage them to do this,” he said.
Kensington, which is owned by office products giant ACCO Brands, plans to build ties with a wider network of UK resellers through a series of VAR development programmes in the second half of 2007.
Bhavesh Patel, commercial director at Ingram Micro, said: “From a distributor perspective it is our role to add value. Profitability and margin is always an issue for the channel and it is essential that we get the message out to our resellers in terms of bundles and attach opportunities.”