Business Solutions
7 Habits of Highly Effective Retail Mobility Providers
Two innovators in retail-only mobility sales share their insights into what has made their businesses success stories.
- By David Kopf
- Aug 01, 2019
If there’s one corner of the HME industry
has felt the imperative to move to retail
sales, it is standard power mobility.
Those providers have experienced so
much reimbursement change that many
have gravitated toward retail sales.
If anything retail is where the real
business exists.
And there remains a considerable market for
retail mobility products. So much so that there
some newcomers have entered the HME industry
as retail-only providers. These new mobility
professionals have never billed a DMEPOS claim
in their life, but they have been cleaning up at
the cash register. How?
To answer that question, I spoke with Wayne
Slavitt, the founder and CEO of Mobile: the
mobility store in Long Beach, Calif., and Doug
Mykol, the co-owner and co-founder of New
Tech Mobility LLP in Scottsdale, Ariz. Both
providers have enjoyed considerable success
as retail-only mobility providers, and they have
both followed their own unique journeys as retail
business owners and operators.
Both took some time out of their busy workdays
to share seven key habits that have helped
them succeed in the realm of retail mobility:
1: PRIORITIZE PRODUCT QUALITY
To begin with, a retail provider must offer products
that it knows its clients will value and use,
according to Slavitt. You have to stock merchandize
you can stand behind, because in HME product,
service and sales jointly contribute to success.
“It’s very, very simple. The decision to put a
product on our floor is, we ask a very simple
question, ‘Would I want my mother to use that
product?’” he says. “I speak to Sue Chan about
this on a regular basis. Sue Chen is, as you
know, is the CEO and owner of Nova Medical
Products, and we sell a lot of Nova products. I
have developed a wonderful relationship with
Sue over the years. And Sue tells me that we
are one of the very few retailers that over the
years, have begged her to sell more expensive,
more feature-rich products than she does. And she says she regularly gets the question
from retailers, ‘Do you have a really cheap $89
rollator? That’s what we want to sell.’ But our
belief is that, ‘I wouldn’t want my mom to use
that rollator because it’s going to fall apart in a
couple of months. Because it’s not going to be
comfortable to use, because it might even be
unsafe to use.’
“At the end of the day, we as caregivers, family
caregivers, trying to take care of aging parents.
We are very busy in our lives. So if you can come
into Mobül and you can find a product that we’re
going to stand behind quality-wise, that we know
is going to last a long time, you now can check
that item off your list and you now know you’ve
taken care of mom or dad in a way that’s going
to be best for them.”
2:
BE INSPIRED
As a mobility device user, Mykol says he
gravitated towards “cool” product. He started
with an iBOT, but after five years or so, it started
having some issues and support for the product
had evaporated. So he eventually landed on the
WHILL Model M power wheelchair.
I think I was one of the first retail buyers in the
U.S, when they came out here in 2015 and I loved
it. And since I was a user and saw the pluses and
minuses and the features that it had that very few
others had, I decided to sell them.
So he co-founded New Tech Mobility in 2015
with his wife around the WHILL product line. That
level of enthusiasm is infectious; Mykol’s excitement
about WHILL’s products helps him evangelize
the chairs to his customers. He likes the chairs
so much that his initial enthusiasm and attraction
to and affinity for the chairs still feels fresh.
“The style is important to me, and then the
features are next,” he says. “As far as the cool
front wheels that float instead of turn, and the
seat slide are important. The first time I got my
will that evening I went out with some friends
for dinner, and we went to a restaurant but there
were no tables available and I had to slide into
a booth, but then the WHILL was in the way. So
I use my remote control and sent it down to the
end of the restaurant, parked it. So it was out of
the way of everybody. We had this great dinner
and I called it back to me at the end and slid out
of the booth into the WHILL, and we left. I mean
it was a perfect test track.”
That’s the kind of story and enthusiasm that
will resonate deeply with any potential WHILL
buyer.
3:
OFFER GOOD, BETTER,
BEST SELECTION
Slavitt offers a lot of products at his business and
one category is rollators. Included in that lineup?
A $1,195 unit, the Motion2 from Dutch manufacturer
Rollz. Even the casual observer would probably
raise their eyebrows at the notion of a near- $1,200 rollator, but the sleek unit with impressive
design, unique features and attractive paint job
sells, he says.
“When the rep from Rollz came in, I had not
heard of the product nor had Roy Hannah, my
general manager, who’s been in the business for
almost 40 years; hadn’t heard of it. So we were
very interested. The product itself is just a beautiful
product.
“So I said to the rep, ‘How much does this
retail for?’” he recounts. “And he said, ‘$1,195.’ I
said, ‘We have a similar product from Medline. …
It does the same things for $395. Who is going
to pay three times that amount?’ And he said to
me, ‘Wayne, you know what? I’m willing to let you
have the product here for a month or so to see
kind of feedback you get from customers.’
“So we left it there, he went home,” Slavitt
continues. “The very next day we sold one, and
it blew me away. But it also made me realize that
we have an opportunity to present wonderful
selections. So we’re not just selling a $200
rollator, we’re selling a $1,200 rollator and everything
in between.”
And those more expensive items help sell
other items. They give customers a good, better,
best range that lets them decide what is the
right product for their needs, wants and budget.
“We really feel that when a customer comes in
and says, ‘I’m feeling a little unstable walking,’
we always will suggest a walker, and we’ll talk to
them about how often they’re using it, what their
mobility is, and if a rollator is what they need,
then we’re going to show them what we would
call the very best solution,” Slavitt explains.
“Well, the very best solution is going to be the
Rollz, but quite frankly, not everyone can afford a
$1,200 rollator/transport chair.
“Well, no problem, no judgment at all. We
will then show them a step-down product,”
he continues. “It might be the Drive Nitro that
retails for $395. It might be the Triumph, the
Escape rollator that sells for in between $295
and $495. It might be a three-wheel walker from
either Nova or Carex, that sells for $147. Or it
might be the traditional rollator that Nova sells
in four different sizes, and that’s going to sell for
anywhere between $178, $192. But what we’re
doing here, by having various choices at different
price points, we’re able to find a solution that not
only is going to be functionally sound, but also
fits into someone’s budget.”
4: CREATE RAVING FANS
Mykol says New Tech has been driving the
majority of its traffic through word of mouth and
customer referrals. How? He says it comes down
to service.
“You know, it’s cliché, but I’ve always been a
fan of Kenneth Blanchard’s and Sheldon Bowles’s
‘Raving Fans’ book,” he says. “We firmly believe
in making raving fans. So we have our customers
loving our customer service, products, or how
we take care of them. So we get a lot of referrals
from them. And that’s been, that’s the ultimate
success for us.”
And how can a provider create raving fans?
Mykol says creating product familiarity goes
a long way. A customer or family member will
come into his store that is attracted to the
WHILL’s eye-catching design and wanting to learn more. The first thing New Tech will do is
learn more about the prospective user.
“We immediately take that call and get a little
bit of information about height, weight, size,
and what their needs are and make sure they
can, because will not for everyone, it’s for select
clientele that has the upper body strength and
hand motion, that kind of thing,” he explains.
Then the next step is getting that users to
start interacting with the product.
“Then we go to their house in their environment
where they’re going to use it,” Mykol says. “I think that’s one of the big differences that we
take the WHILL to them to do test drives. They
don’t have to come into our store or anything
like that. So we let them experience the will and
tight confines of their kitchen, their bathroom,
their living room, out on the sidewalk, the mall,
whatever it is close by.”
Once the customer buys the chair, New Tech
delivers the chair to the customer, trains them on
how to use it, and then touches base regularly
with the client to ensure their experience is still
positive.
“Any service issues or anything else is taken
care of immediately,” Mykol says. “We do that
ourselves also. And I think it’s just the follow-up
and that constant ‘reach out and touch someone’
as they used to say at AT&T. We touch them
frequently.”
And Mykol says that work to maintain healthy
customer relationships pays dividends.
“We also reminds them that we do have a
referral program,” he says. “We pay him a little
spiff if they refer someone that buys a chair,” he
says. “I have had a couple of customers make
some pretty good money at it because they refer
a lot of people, but at the same time they’re
doing it because they like the product and they
are believers in it.”
5. FOLLOW THE MONEY
Smart retailers know where they derive the lion’s
share of their revenues. For Slavitt’s Mobül, his
store’s retail mobility strengths are lift chairs
and scooters he plays to those strengths. His
store is brimming with a wide selection of items
from both categories. For instance, there are so
many lift chairs you might be fooled into thinking
Mobül could be a furniture store.
“It didn’t take long for me to figure out that
if we focus on lift chairs and scooters, we’ll do
all right,” Slavitt says. “We still sell a lot of other
things and that, and the lifter and scooter might
not be the first thing people come in to buy, but
once we get you in here, we’re going to sit you in
a lift chair eventually.
“It might not be the first time, might not be
the second time, but if we make the suggestion,
it’s because we’ve identified a need you might
have for that lift chair,” he continues. “And that’s
going to be an important thing that we get to
show you.”
Providing a broad range of selection on your
main offerings is crucial to maximizing that category’s
sales potential. And you have to back that
selection up with the kind of sales and service
that will seal the deal.
“I equate buying a lift chair to buying a pair
of shoes,” Slavitt explains. “We want people to
be able to try it on, and sit in it for a while. I tell
the story often of this customer who has since
passed away, but when he bought his lift chair,
he brought a book with him. He said, ‘“I have a
35-minute rule.’ He said, ‘I want to sit in the chair
and I want to read a book for 35 minutes. And if it
feels good after 35 minutes, I’m going to buy it.’
“You want to sit in it long enough to really get a
feel for how it’s going to feel,” he continues. “So
we sat him there, we left him alone for a while. We
never pressure-sell anyone. We never force them
to buy something they’re not ready to buy. With
some customers, we need to help push them
along a little bit sometimes; they need a little
suggestion. So we’re going to help them with
color. We have color swatches and they can take
them home if they want. They can try it out, whatever
a customer needs to be comfortable.”
6. FOSTER PRODUCT INTERACTION
One thing Mykol has started doing and is going
to make a regular part of his business is to
host test drive days where users can test the
chairs and enjoy some snacks or other goodies.
The more prospective buyers can spend time
demoing a chair, the more they can decide if
it’s right for them. He advises that the provider
be there as a facilitator and to answer questions
more to sell. Rather, let the experience and the
product convince the customer.
“People come in and they test-drive them and
no charge, no pressure, no nothing,” he says.
“And that also is I’m sure going to get some
sales, but they can also watch what works, what
doesn’t work, you know, go outside and you
know, take the curb. You know, or the curb cut,
you know, squeeze between cars in the parking
lot. You know, all those types of things that
WHILL is good for because of its compact size.”
But Mykol adds that he still thinks the best
environment is for the test unit to get demoed in
the user’s home.
“It’s a big difference from test driving a power
chair in the store than it is in their kitchen, their
bathroom, their hallways, their doorway, etc.,” he
says. “I think that’s critical.”
But at the end of the day, demoing a product
the more a customer tries out a product, the
more that person can imagine that product in
their life.
7. CREATE A STORE THAT
TRULY ENGAGES
Bearing that thought in mind, Slavitt says he
tries to get his customers to envision Mobül’s
HME products in their lives. To that end, he has
build a four-room “home”— complete with walls,
windows, and even a street number — in his
showroom.
The home fatures a garage, living room,
bathroom and a bedroom that all showcase
various retail HME items in real-life settings.
The purpose of the display is to get customers
to interact with various HME items and see how
those products can fit into their lives.
“You might wonder, why would we build a
house inside of a store?” he says. “The main
reason is that we want to give customers a
chance to see what it might look like in their
home and also to try out products.
“It also lets them do what’s really important
to us in retail, and that is to imagine,” he
continues. “To imagine having a nice, adjustable
bed; imagine having a lift chair in your living
room; imagine a scooter being parked in your
garage. When we start to use ‘imagine,’ then the
customer can envision it in their own house, and
that gets them closer to making a decision.”
As they say, the proof is in the pudding, and
Slavitt says his store experiences low return rates
thanks to that focus on customer-product interaction
and orientation.
This article originally appeared in the Aug/Sep 2019 issue of HME Business.