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Mega Group Convention Reports Strong Attendance
March 20,
2013 by in UnCategorized 
By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on March 21, 2013
Home furnishings and appliance buying group Mega Group USA reported strong attendance at its Spring convention held earlier this month in Dallas.
"We had great attendance and dealers were buying," said Mega President Rick Bellows. "We had record orders taken for this 3 day event indicating attitudes are good and there is a comfort level for the months to come."
The theme of this years conference was Traffic, Margin, Execute and the point was driven home by the keynote speaker, Sam Geist, president of Geist & Associates and author of best selling book, Execute Or Be Executed. Geists keynote addressed the need to develop strategies and more importantly the will to execute to completion.
The rest of the morning and early afternoon was dedicated to various workshops and educational seminars. The day concluded with the inaugural "Mega Madness" event. This is a special one hour event that brought Mega members exceptional buys. Vendors were challenged to provide truly exceptional offers for members to purchase within the one hour window.
"Mega Madness exceeded our wildest expectations", commented Missy Hodges, appliance director. "We wrote more business in one hour than our previous show in one day. The vendors came to the party with great offers that were only available to attendees, a huge success."
Mega launched the new Dreamhaven Collection by Serta at the show. The Collection includes Private Label, Perfect Sleeper and iSeries collections hitting $299-$1999 retail points for queen beds and offers dealers an exclusive proprietary assortment. In addition, Mega introduced an 11-group upholstery/motion program retailing from $599 to $799 sofa in covers and frames from a Mega exclusive premier U.S. supplier.
These two programs offer great value, margin and sales opportunities for our members and will drive traffic to the stores," said Furniture Director Jerry Honea.
"Our dealer focus over the last several years has been on on-line marketing, technology, and eCommerce opportunities through the Mega WebFronts program, which was reinforced by guest speaker Sucharita Mulpuru of Forrester Research and Roger Blackwell PHD, an expert on consumer behavior, said Scott McFarland, IT director for Mega.
Jim Sendrak, director of advertising, introduced the Mega plans for a comprehensive circular campaign to include personal URLs, a complete POP Kit for the store, and web banner ads featuring consumer offers for participating dealers.
Business Services Director Mallory Parker presented the Retail Selling Skills video to the membership, a complete and comprehensive selling resource for all sales personnel, new or veteran. The RS3 video package consist of 22 modules with 16 targeted for selling skills and six dedicated to management and leadership skills. This package contains a workbook guide for every participant and an online certification program. This product is now available for all Mega members.
Mega's next national convention is August 18-21 at the Renaissance Hotel and convention center in Nashville, Tenn.