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ACCESSORISE IT!
Listed under: Comments
Published: Friday, April 30, 2010
The whole world seems to be going headphone crazy at the moment.
Taking a trip on the tube is like stepping back in time to the 70s – not because of the latest fashions, although there are some particularly bad elements of 70s fashion creeping back in; it’s the kids wearing the overly large headphones I’m referring to. Over-ear phones that completely engulf the side of the wearer’s head, making them look somewhat like Princess Leia, were a real fashion statement in the 70s, and they’re back with a vengeance.
It’s a funny turnaround after the drive towards minimisation, started by the Sony Walkman and continued by the iPod, that headphones have started to get bigger again. A quick look at the Apple online store shows a third of the ‘phones it sells are now of the over-ear type. Now, the fact that it sells so many different models – around 85 different products at the last count – might reveal exactly what Apple thinks of the quality of the in-ear ‘phones supplied with the iPod, but it’s also encouraging that the company that brought us what was perhaps the most inappropriately named product of the past few years, the Apple Hi-Fi, has acknowledged the need to squeeze better performance out of the iPod.
But I digress; it’s headphones and accessories that I want to talk about. Looking over the latest GfK figures for the headphone market, there has been a staggering increase in sales over the past five years. In 2005, the UK headphone market was worth £62-million with just over 4.6-million units sold. Fast forward to 2009 and these figures have risen to £106-million and 6.8-million respectively. That represents a dramatic 70% increase by value and 47% by volume – figures that mirror the growth in portable audio.
Of course, companies like BADA Associate member, Sennheiser, continue to lead the way in our sector of the headphone market, producing models that Hi-Fi enthusiasts will want to use. But Sennheiser and its competitors have expanded into the lucrative iPod sector as well, given the business opportunity that this rapid growth market has presented. Another BADA Associate member, Bowers & Wilkins, launched its own headphone product recently, which, given its availability in the Apple store, would suggest another round in the education of the modern music consumer from a major manufacturer. In recent times, I've also come across the new Vivanco Aircoustic in-ear buds with wooden bodies – a refreshingly unusual design which uses the characteristics of the wood to tailor the response to suit different music styles – and another example of offering a better quality sound but in a format that will appeal to those who don’t want over the ear ‘phones.
accessorise all areas
Hi-Fi retailers have long catered for the headphone enthusiasts, but how many have opened their stores to the iPod generation’s desire for headphones? Taking the sound of an iPod and making it as good as it can be surely has to be the driver for our relationship with the unstoppable march of the MP3 – we need to educate the users. With so many manufacturers now producing products on the back of the iPod phenomenon, it’s a gift for specialist retailers, in these somewhat lean times, to be able to prove their expertise to a new group of consumers.
The crux of the matter here is the opportunity that 'accessorising' provides to improve profit margins. And it's not just headphones, but the full gamut of accessories that are available to us. Other industries are very switched on when it comes to pushing accessories – just look at the layout of a Halford’s store, or the impulse purchase gondolas used in supermarkets, or back to the Apple example with all the bolt-ons offered for use with your newly purchased Mac or iPod. This isn’t meant to do down the efforts we have historically made with cables and the like, but we could do so much more. It is quite often the case that the interconnects or speaker cable are thrown in at the end of the deal – maybe they’re a deal clincher on occasion – but given the profit margins available in such products we should be making a real effort to sell cables, stands, racks and the aforementioned headphones. We need a new way of thinking and approaching accessories, one that raises them from the last thought to a serious product category in their own right and puts them at the forefront of the mind.
By focussing on this category and perhaps re-arranging our retail environments to give them more prominence, there is a possibility that we can attract a new type of customer into the shop. And, after all, isn’t that the single biggest problem that we have as an industry – the lack of new customers coming into our shops? If we can get them through the door and put our sales and customer service training into action, who knows where it could lead...
Contact: +44 (0)20 8150 6741 .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
www.bada.co.uk
It’s a funny turnaround after the drive towards minimisation, started by the Sony Walkman and continued by the iPod, that headphones have started to get bigger again. A quick look at the Apple online store shows a third of the ‘phones it sells are now of the over-ear type. Now, the fact that it sells so many different models – around 85 different products at the last count – might reveal exactly what Apple thinks of the quality of the in-ear ‘phones supplied with the iPod, but it’s also encouraging that the company that brought us what was perhaps the most inappropriately named product of the past few years, the Apple Hi-Fi, has acknowledged the need to squeeze better performance out of the iPod.
But I digress; it’s headphones and accessories that I want to talk about. Looking over the latest GfK figures for the headphone market, there has been a staggering increase in sales over the past five years. In 2005, the UK headphone market was worth £62-million with just over 4.6-million units sold. Fast forward to 2009 and these figures have risen to £106-million and 6.8-million respectively. That represents a dramatic 70% increase by value and 47% by volume – figures that mirror the growth in portable audio.
Of course, companies like BADA Associate member, Sennheiser, continue to lead the way in our sector of the headphone market, producing models that Hi-Fi enthusiasts will want to use. But Sennheiser and its competitors have expanded into the lucrative iPod sector as well, given the business opportunity that this rapid growth market has presented. Another BADA Associate member, Bowers & Wilkins, launched its own headphone product recently, which, given its availability in the Apple store, would suggest another round in the education of the modern music consumer from a major manufacturer. In recent times, I've also come across the new Vivanco Aircoustic in-ear buds with wooden bodies – a refreshingly unusual design which uses the characteristics of the wood to tailor the response to suit different music styles – and another example of offering a better quality sound but in a format that will appeal to those who don’t want over the ear ‘phones.
accessorise all areas
Hi-Fi retailers have long catered for the headphone enthusiasts, but how many have opened their stores to the iPod generation’s desire for headphones? Taking the sound of an iPod and making it as good as it can be surely has to be the driver for our relationship with the unstoppable march of the MP3 – we need to educate the users. With so many manufacturers now producing products on the back of the iPod phenomenon, it’s a gift for specialist retailers, in these somewhat lean times, to be able to prove their expertise to a new group of consumers.
The crux of the matter here is the opportunity that 'accessorising' provides to improve profit margins. And it's not just headphones, but the full gamut of accessories that are available to us. Other industries are very switched on when it comes to pushing accessories – just look at the layout of a Halford’s store, or the impulse purchase gondolas used in supermarkets, or back to the Apple example with all the bolt-ons offered for use with your newly purchased Mac or iPod. This isn’t meant to do down the efforts we have historically made with cables and the like, but we could do so much more. It is quite often the case that the interconnects or speaker cable are thrown in at the end of the deal – maybe they’re a deal clincher on occasion – but given the profit margins available in such products we should be making a real effort to sell cables, stands, racks and the aforementioned headphones. We need a new way of thinking and approaching accessories, one that raises them from the last thought to a serious product category in their own right and puts them at the forefront of the mind.
By focussing on this category and perhaps re-arranging our retail environments to give them more prominence, there is a possibility that we can attract a new type of customer into the shop. And, after all, isn’t that the single biggest problem that we have as an industry – the lack of new customers coming into our shops? If we can get them through the door and put our sales and customer service training into action, who knows where it could lead...
Contact: +44 (0)20 8150 6741 .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
www.bada.co.uk
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