Are you selling the Connected Home?

Mike Harris, head of retail at Micro-P, showcased the opportunities to make sales from the Connected Home today at PCR Retail Boot Camp.

He began by pointing out that the connected home is happening right now.

A quick survey of the delegates attending showed that many, who own smartphones, tablets and wireless networks, are already part of a connected home – they just need their devices to start talking to one another.

Apps can help with this a lot of the time. Lovefilm, Spotify, Facebook, etc will enable devices to do this. What they do is enable people to watch content when they want to, where they want to, with the people they want to – whether it’s streaming films to different rooms of a house, or kids watching a TV show on a tablet.

Harris says he splits Connected Home products into two main groups:

First, he says ‘Store and share’ are at the hub of the Connected Home. This includes:

Wireless networking

Power-line

Media streamers

NAS

Then he examined the ‘Consumption devices’ out there. Including:

Smart TVs

Multifunction monitors

Smartphones

Tablets

PC/notebooks

Games consoles

Wireless printers

Wireless audio and airplay devices

It’s a massive range of products, and Harris pointed out that we have to work to educate the customer about them all. And if we’re too slow they’ll educate us!

There are many opportunities for retailers. Harris suggests products need to be demonstrated in stores. “That’s where you get the wow factor.”

Another opportunity is using service to your advantage – you can charge a premium to install devices, for example.

Connected home will lead into the connected classroom and office too.

People will come to you because you’ll be their local experts. And, Harris said, Micro-P is keen to help retailers and train them. It considers itself an expert on the Connected Home – which you can find out more about at Micro-P’s exclusive Connected Home room at Boot Camp itself.

PCR Retail Boot Camp, powered by Innergie, is an exciting new conference and expo for the UK PC and IT channel.

Supporting the PCR Retail Boot Camp are Innergie (Headline Partner), Micro-P (Connected Home Partner), GData, VIP Computers, Arctic, Westcoast, Lygo/Turtle Beach, EntaTech, ESET and Zotac/Kuoda (Platinum Partners), plus AVG, AOC, Philips, Avance Technologies, Computers Unlimited, Koch Media, Autotask, Samsung, TP Link, Wasp, Synaxon, Realtime Distribution, Avance, Cisco and Hama (Gold Partners).

CompTIA, Brigantia and the Network Group are also Associate Partners of the event.

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