Stampede Celebrates Year of Record-Breaking Growth at CEDIA 2014
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Paced by the addition of a number of new manufacturers to its vendor portfolio, along with a substantial growth in the number of dealers in its network, Stampede Presentation Products, Inc. is celebrating a record-setting year of growth at CEDIA 2014 in Denver, Colorado.
The new manufacturers who have appointed Stampede to serve as a distribution partner include Canon Security, Circle Technologies, UC Clearone, Furman, BlueBOLT, DJI Drones, Walkera, EPSON, HP Tablets, LG Electronics Consumer, Lumens, Marshall Electronics, Mustang, Neurona/Greenpeak, Samsung Consumer, Samsung Hospitality, Sharp Consumer, SONY EVI, Vaddio, VDO360, Vision, and Wyrestorm among many others. According to Kelly, these manufacturers are electing to work with Stampede because of the depth of its market knowledge and the strength of its dealer network, which has grown to more than 11,500 dealers this past year.
A rapidly changing industry is also playing to Stampede’s strengths, according to Kelly. “The Age of Interactivity is now giving way to a new Age of Hyperactivity characterized by an always-fast, always-on Internet and, as a result, a new era of unprecedented opportunity is now unfolding — creating sales opportunities for dealers that were unimaginable a few short years ago.
“At a time when the traditional AV industry is maturing, a new personalized industry is rising up to take its place, one that is built upon the ideas of connecting, integrating, and sharing devices in entirely new eco-systems built around highly customized software applications,” Kelly explained. “This shift is challenging our industry to stop using the terms ‘audio and video’ and start using the terms ‘see, hear and control’ in order to understand the business opportunities that this shift is creating.”
Stampede has taken a number of strategic steps to empower its 11,500 dealers to take advantage of this seismic shift by consumers and professionals to connect, integrate and share devices at work, school, government and home. “Since last year’s CEDIA Show we added 20 new product lines and several new core platforms that traditional AV products can attach to,” Kelly said.
Even more encouraging for dealers and integrators, Stampede’s sales are growing in all three of its primary product categories — displays, projectors, and unified communications, which is by far the fastest growing segment of the company’s business.
Kelly reaffirmed Stampede’s commitment to constantly add value to every system installation it is involved with. “Value adds margin for our dealers,” Kelly told Vendor Summit attendees. “And, thus far in 2014, Stampede is adding value at an unprecedented level that cannot be matched by any other distributor in the business today. We can add this value on a consistent basis because we are focused exclusively on meeting the needs of the ProAV dealer community. We are not distracted by other industries and market segments. We devote 100 percent of our time and considerable resources to helping dealers grow their business.”
Meeting the demands of growth, however, requires an expanding commitment to maintain face-to-face training, online learning, and readily available credit facilities to qualified dealers, “all of which Stampede is committed to providing,” Kelly added. “Last year we increased our available monthly credit line by 28 percent, enabling us to serve as a bank to our dealer partners. This year we are opening a new southwest regional office and adding to our field sales team network to increase the number of contacts we can have with dealers and their customers. ”