Karma re-establishes retail links

CHS Electronics is looking to rebuild relationships with retailers as it begins to sell peripherals into the consumer channel through Karma, its components arm.

As revealed in PC Dealer (17 December), Karma admitted that it was looking at the possibility of entering the consumer market because the company felt UK retailers were charging more than their US counterparts and also enjoyed artificially high margins.

The move represents a return for CHS to closer links with retail partners. During its days as Merisel, the distributor was the preferred supplier for retail giant Tempo, a relationship that had been in place for a number of years when the operation was a corporate reseller.

Peter Rigby, director of marketing and communications at CHS, acknowledged that the distributor has some loose ties with retailers, working through suppliers instead, but was considering forming links of its own. 'We are certainly looking at using retail more, particularly for components and supplies,' he said.

Ron Golan, general manager at Karma, said the unit will begin by selling monitors, motherboards, video and sound cards into various outlets, which he declined to name for the time being. 'What I will say is that we will make some real noise in the UK channel.'

He added that Karma was looking to expand outside of its traditional business since it wants to be able to provide the full range of components required by systems builders.

To this end, it has recently signed with IBM to distribute the vendor's hard drives.

Karma is also set to move into a bigger premises in March, upgrading from its current 4,000 sq ft premises to a 16,000 sq ft warehouse space in Wembley, London.