October 6, 2023 • 37 mins
Batteries Plus has consistently shattered company sales records this year, leaving many curious about the secret behind their remarkable success. In this insightful interview, we sit down with Jon Sica, the Chief Business Officer of Batteries Plus, to unravel the strategies that have propelled this specialty retailer to new heights in a challenging economic landscape marked by inflation.
Jon provides a compelling narrative about the brand's thriving franchise model. With a keen focus on the unique advantages of franchising, Jon illustrates why Batteries Plus stands out as a powerhouse in the industry.
Delving deep into the business model, we explore Batteries Plus' evolution and its transition into providing tailor-made battery packs for diverse sectors. Jon shares the key ingredients to their success, emphasizing their extensive range of batteries, value-added installation services, and the unparalleled benefits that franchising offers to aspiring entrepreneurs. Through this conversation, gain valuable insights into the captivating realm of batteries and discover how Batteries Plus is empowering individuals to create lasting wealth through franchising opportunities.
In the latter part of our discussion, we shift our attention to Batteries Plus' customer-centric approach. Jon Sica elaborates on their innovative solutions, from seamless key fob replacements and programming to adapting to the preferences of an increasingly hands-off generation. Gain a deep understanding of Batteries Plus' market stewardship program and gain a glimpse into the future of franchise growth, all while appreciating the brand's commitment to enhancing the customer experience.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to the Retail Wire podcast, your go-to source
for all things retail.
Whether you're a seasonedindustry veteran or just dipping
your toes into the world ofretail, our podcast is the place
for the latest trends, insightsand discussions that are
shaping the future of retail.
I'm your host, chase Binney,and today I'm joined by John
Seca, the Chief Business Officerfor Batteries Plus.
(00:36):
Hey, john, how are you doing?
Good, chase, how are you?
I'm doing well.
I'm excited to have you on thisepisode.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I know a lot of people.
They don't even realize howmany batteries they're using
every day.
So I'm really excited to diginto this topic from a practical
standpoint and from a businessstandpoint, and what you guys
are up to at Batteries Plus.
Tell us a little bit about yourcurrent role and the focus in
your career.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, thank you.
My current role as ChiefBusiness Officer.
I get to work with teams acrossthe business, from franchising
to technology to storedevelopment and BI.
As I look at our business, mymain role is helping our
franchisees be successful andcome into our system and help
(01:27):
grow our model as a franchisor.
We rely on investors coming inand building stores and
expanding our brand across theUnited States.
We're at 720 stores and growingin 48 states and Puerto Rico.
As a franchisor, it isincumbent upon us to provide we
(01:50):
are the business partners to allof our store operators.
As a business partner, we'vegot to provide all the insights
from you would get at a majorretailer, from merchandising to
marketing to technology support.
With my team, we focus on notonly helping people join the
(02:11):
business, be trained and besuccessful as a owner through
developing stores, but also howwe're developing our technology
platforms to support our owners,whether it's in ordering
inventory, creating marketingplans, creating B2B email
campaigns or whatever the casemay be.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's really interesting that the franchise
model unlocks that extrapartnership framework.
Have you always worked in afranchise model retailer or have
you come here from anothermodel?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, I came up in a more conventional specialty
retail business, an outdoorcompany called Cabela's.
I worked there many years andthrough that business, many of
those lessons and specialtyretail and how you succeed in
specialty retail whether it's ina big box or small box format,
it's all the line upon creatingthat selling culture and
(03:11):
creating that competitiveadvantage.
When people are coming to aspecialty retail, they're coming
there for a reason eitherbecause you have bigger
selection, you offer service,there is some component there
that you are leaning into from aspecialty standpoint.
It's not just EDLP, everydaylow price.
(03:33):
After my career at Cabela'stransitioned to restaurants, I
got into the franchise industryand learned quite a bit about
franchising at Waterburger,which grew very quickly as a
franchise business, learned, wasable to benefit from their
decades of successful franchiserelationships and experience,
(03:54):
and then was able to bring thatwith me to Battery Spluzz when I
joined this brand in 2019.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Was there a switch?
I'm imagining there's a bigdifference between the Cabela's
and the franchise model atBattery Spluzz.
Is there a superpower?
A little switch that has toswitch in your brain in order to
make it work?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
There is and you know , and really you know there's
two switches.
I mean the, the.
The first is economic.
In a franchise model, you knowwe live off a 5% royalty as the
franchise or you are not.
You know when you think aboutproduct costs and you know set
top-line sales.
Yes, you want to go top-linesales because you're making a
(04:40):
royalty off those top-line sales, but you're keeping your
franchise partners in businessby making sure that there's
enough gross margin after that5% royalty to make them rich and
make them, make them successfuland make them want to build
more stores.
So that's one switch and theother switch.
You know and you know mainlineretail.
You can be much more taskoriented in, you know.
(05:02):
You know sending out.
You know through a flexus oranother task management system,
you know set this plan, graham,send me a photo, make it, make
it happen, order this inventory.
And you're working off, youknow your balance sheet.
As a large corporation, we'reworking off around 260 mini
balance sheets and creatingcampaigns of influence to Make
(05:26):
the an economic valueproposition to our franchisees
about.
This is why you want to buythis product.
It's going to deliver this foryou and this many transactions
and this meant muchprofitability and this is why we
want you to make this changeright away.
And you know, sure, as afranchise or you know some,
there's a spectrum of you knowcompliance and accountability,
(05:49):
and most franchisors have broadpower and control to you know,
exert their, their directivesometimes, but yeah, at the end
of the day, this is a businesspartnership.
You want to have a goodrelationship with your
franchisees and you want to, youknow, lean way more towards you
know, the carrot than the stickand, in my opinion, yeah, that
(06:09):
makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
In some ways.
You have less control of what'sgoing on, but on the other hand
, you don't you're notresponsible for what happens
Downstream.
So you kind of make this you'reusing your funding to to make
that demand and then drivepeople To those products or to
those stores.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, our ultimate accountability is to, you know,
our franchisee success andthat's how we look at it.
We want them to be successful,we want them to be highly
profitable and, you know we wantthem to continue to expand and,
you know, have confidence inthe system and the, the products
and the, the brand awarenessthat we're generating overall.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I heard somewhere in an interview that batteries plus
is unique and they said theyyou have no direct competitors,
which was hard for me to believe.
But what?
What do?
What would they mean by that?
Could you tell us more aboutjust the batteries plus
positioning?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, when you you think about our business model
overall, you could say wecompete with everybody and you
could say we compete with nobody.
And if you took the line of,you know we're not gonna compete
with a Walmart or an Amazon ona double-a alkaline battery that
you know you can get by thoseanywhere.
(07:26):
Yes, we offer them, but that'snot where you know we excel.
We excel when customers comeinto our stores and you know
this is where the batteryindustry, and you know its
evolution, is really helping us.
Yes, more and more things haveembedded batteries.
You can't just pop out it's notjust a double-a and say, hey,
what is this like?
(07:47):
I've never seen this before.
Help me find this.
And and that's where our largersort men and long tail of Skews
and you know the systems we'vedeveloped over 30 years in
business and the, the, theproduct libraries and the deep
PIM Expertise that we have me aproduct information management
Allows us to help any associateyou come in to find what you're
(08:08):
looking for.
Yeah, with those crossreferences, to be able to say,
yeah, we know what that is andlook like an expert and then not
only sell you the battery butthen help you install it.
Back to what is our valueproposition as a specialty
retailer.
It is.
There's really service attachedwith every sale.
We will help you and we'll fixyour problem.
(08:29):
And you know and in our case youknow we say, yeah, there's,
there's no one else out there.
You know competing like this isyou can go buy those products.
You can try to find, you know,a Battery with a 20 digit serial
number on Amazon, but you maynot know and you may get it in
two days.
You know, if you have a primemembership, we offer that.
(08:49):
You know, at 720 locations.
You know right now, and youknow we even see that in our buy
online, pick up and store data,where you know most items are
Fulfilled within six hoursbecause people need what we sell
Right now.
It's not like, hey, I can waitthree days for this to show up.
No, I need this device.
I need this yeah thing to befixed, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Thinking of a battery remote that's like the, the
interchangeable little annoyingthing that, oh no, it's not
working.
Or you get the warning it sayslow battery and then you never.
You never buy batteries untilit actually dies.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
You want it right now .
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, but that's that's something unique that I
don't think about, because thisshift is happening and, and I
don't know, someone coined theterm, was it?
Was it you coined the term, thebattery movement?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
It may have been.
It may have been.
We talk a lot about itinternally.
You know, for a couple ofreasons, there is, you know, the
proliferation of batteries anddevices of every kind.
Everything is connected.
Now most of those are embeddedbatteries.
And you know the interestingthing about our businesses were
70 percent retail, 30 percentcommercial or B2B, and you know
(10:08):
there's even more an impact fromthe, the Internet, of things on
the B2B side.
Then there is sometimes on theB2C side of you think of, you
know, you know devices in everybusiness, whether it's exit
signs or, you know, industrialmachinery, that are all battery
powered.
Now the other piece of the, thebattery movement, if you will,
(10:29):
is the, the shift away from, youknow, petroleum based.
You know, power generation.
You know.
Especially, you know, forpeople's homes, you know it's
much easier to a, charge andmaintain a battery pack In your
home.
Then it is to you constantlymaintain a generator, you know,
change the oil.
You have all that waste, haveall that mass and you could just
(10:52):
have a nice clean battery packin the closet for when you need
to.
You know, run something in apinch, there's a lot here to
unpack.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
I see a change from that interchangeable, you know,
small device kind of battery,where it's more of a commodity.
Oh yeah, I'll pick up a pack ofthose and, like people, I don't
know if people have a loyaltyto this brand or that brand.
It's kind of kind of all oneand the same it's price.
Yeah.
Price and availability yeah,you're almost.
(11:20):
You're almost just because ofthe market and the way that
technology is changing.
You're almost becoming more ofa technology company because of
how integrated batteries areinto the products.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, that's something we think about a lot.
People are creating thosebatteries for very specific
devices and for their parodies.
It could be an aesthetic reason, it could be a performance
reason.
They may like, hey, I want itto fit inside this phone, or I
may want it to fit insidesomething else, and that's where
you may say, well, geez, Idon't know if Apple or somebody
(11:55):
else makes a battery, that couldmake it hard for you guys.
And that's where many and weappreciate the will of consumers
getting expressed through ourlegislators, where you're right
to repair laws help our businessbut also customers be able to
go in.
An automaker can't lock thehood of their car.
(12:15):
If you buy a car, you need tobe able to buy any replacement
parts wherever you want.
And it's the same concept formany of these devices and
similar laws apply where, yeah,if a customer wants to replace
it, there's nothing stoppingpeople, especially where those
devices are getting a lot ofpopularity.
We have replacements forwhether it's a Dyson vacuum or a
(12:40):
Wumba iPhones, in addition tothe large automobile batteries
and even larger industrialbatteries that we specialize in
today.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Right, Is that practice still happening, where
the product manufacturer isdesigning an embedded thing that
they know will die so that youhave to buy it again?
Or is that part of thatlegislation?
Is there something that you'reseeing for the laws?
I actually had no idea thatthere were laws against making
things irreplaceable.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's, you know, we see that.
You know, with our friends atApple, I mean, there are
aftermarket batteries and youknow we have internal facilities
here on our campus in Wisconsinthat you know will test
aftermarket batteries to ensureOEM grade or better performance.
But you know, apple is reallyleading the way and have been
(13:35):
great right to repair advocatesand they're even providing tools
.
And you know those parts arevery below on the consumer
marketplace today in ways theynever did before.
And again, from a retailstandpoint, well, jesus, john,
does that make it harder to, youknow, sell?
And it's like well, no, becausewe're still selling.
You know, the parts have beenout there for a long time.
(13:57):
We're selling the service.
Like, believe me, I've done therepairs.
There are a lot of tiny screws,you do not want to mess that up
.
Yeah, so we've got a, you know,very thorough trading system
and tools that helps ourtechnicians.
Okay, every screw goes into acertain order in a certain box,
(14:17):
you know.
And because, again, that's ouradvantage and that's what we're
providing to customers from youknow, a vendor standpoint, I
think you will see more and morespecialty batteries.
But again, most of thosebatteries are just cells and
some are wired togetherdifferently.
And you know we call the batterypack sometimes and we've
(14:38):
actually found that has been agreat source of commercial
revenue for us to this point,whether it's for government
applications or other commercialaviation applications.
You name the industry.
We probably do a custom batterypack for somebody and, yeah, as
that business grows, you know,we think, you know we have the
(14:59):
capability to build thosebattery packs in our stores and
to replace those.
You know, when it's just hey,I've got these three cells wired
together, taped together, likewe do that.
Wow, yeah, the stories from my,the stories I've heard from
some of our franchisees wouldblow you mind, from you know one
of them in Arizona who you knowis the only one that makes a
(15:20):
certain battery pack that goesin the cockpit of commercial
airlines to.
You know one in Florida thathas worked on you know secret
government things for the Navythat have you know gone into.
You know underwater submarinesand I mean it's like wow, like I
had no idea this is going on ina tiny little batteries plus
store.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Sure, yeah, I want to dive deep on that secret
government thing that you'redoing.
It's just clicking back to this, this franchise model.
I never thought how that mayempower this much innovation,
right, because you know, in anormal scenario like Florida,
(16:01):
the Florida store manager mightsay, hey, we've got this really
weird opportunity.
And it'd be like, nope, it'snot in there, nope, we're not
doing that, but there's.
There are all these like littleopportunities that a store
franchisee would be able to takeon as an entrepreneurial
venture, correct?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah, that's the magic of franchising and the
magic of entrepreneurialthinking that you know to your
point.
You know, if a you know NavySEAL walks in and says, hey guys
, can you make me one of these?
You know if it was a storemanager and most retail chains,
and you know, not a knock.
I think you know all of us inthe industry I mean I mean most
(16:44):
managers be like, yeah, we don'tcare anything like that,
whereas you know, in ourfranchise model, we, you know,
when you open a store, you getall of these tools and we also
have a library of tools and ayou know literal battery lab as
part of our campus where afranchisee can call it.
Be like, hey, a guy came intoday and he had this battery
(17:04):
pack and it's got thisspecification Can you help me
make one?
Or can you give?
You know, I get the parts tomake one?
And we'll be like, yeah, yeah,we'll help with that and we'll
help you test it and we'll helpyou figure that battery pack out
.
And to enable our franchises togo after those opportunities
and, you know, enable them to beentrepreneurs in their markets
(17:28):
and grow their businesses, youknow, by whatever way they can,
because you know, for them, forour franchises, I mean, this is
an investment, that this isabout creating generational
wealth for their families, andthat's what we want to enable.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
It's a refreshing perspective.
We also learned that you'vebeen breaking multiple company
records and doing it veryquickly, thinking, since you
have no direct competitors, youcould tell us the sauce.
What's been playing the mostsignificant roles for you guys?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Well, you know one of them.
I mean because you know we haveno direct competitors and you
know people think of batteriesplus and most people you know
you drive by the store and yousay you know batteries plus on a
double A batteries, maybe somelight bulbs.
You know you don't necessarilythink of everything that we do,
which it goes from, yes, yournormal household batteries to
(18:20):
large commercial batteries, carbatteries, boat batteries, where
we motorcycle batteries, wherewe have a wider selection than
anybody else, and we, you knowwe'll install it for you, like
you don't have to call adealership or call a auto shop
and make it a form.
You can just come in, we'lljust vote in for you.
And also, you know key fobreplacement and key fob
(18:41):
programming.
You know most vehicles comewith key fobs today and if you
went to a dealership that maycost you $350 to get a key fob
replace, you know we'll do itfor less than half of that.
And again, like mountainappointment, you probably may
not have to wait.
You know we will have the part.
(19:02):
You know you just drive up andyou know take 15 minutes, go
outside and make it happen.
And it's that you know immediate.
You know servicing thoseimmediate needs is where we
found our niche, because youknow the things we do, would we
are able to do in a franchisemodel would be very hard for a
big box to do and it requiresthat you.
(19:23):
You know you have greatfranchisees who are engaged in
their business, that want to,you know, invest in retaining
people, invest in retaininggreat management and technicians
to be able to do these things,and that is, I think, the model
is as much a secret sauce asanything.
And you know, from a brandawareness standpoint, we have
(19:45):
Medalia as our customerexperience source of record and
you know our net promoter scoreis in the mid 80s, which most
people, when we find it hard tobelieve that it's that high.
Yeah, because you know when weare.
You are coming to us in yourtime of greatest need or a time
(20:06):
of great need and we're solving,we're making your day better,
we're solving your issue thereon the spot, and that's you know
why.
You know customers love us andfrom working at other businesses
you know at.
You know Cabela's especially,you would look at, okay, we're
looking at.
You know customers.
You know male demographic age.
You know 40 to 60 prime earningyears who are participating in
(20:29):
outdoor activities.
You know everybody uses ourproducts.
You know our customer base ispeople across the board, and so
we've been setting recordsbecause people just haven't seen
us coming, which we like, andyou know it's very hard for our.
You know competitors in oursame categories, whether it's
pure play commerce or you knowbrick and mortar to keep up with
(20:54):
the level of service we're ableto deliver.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
A lot of retailers want to have that level of
customer service.
Because of the install piece,you were required to have that
and it ends up sounding likethat's.
That's one of your advantages.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Something that someone may havesaid man, I wish that these
things install themselves, butyou wouldn't.
(21:18):
You wouldn't have that netpromoter score as high as you
would if the product justinstalled itself.
Yep, correct.
They might even be morefrustrated because it says it
installs itself and it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, yeah, you get home and you try to take
something apart and like, uh-oh,I've gone in too deep yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Like Ikea has kind of mastered that.
I don't know how much furtherthey'll be able to go with this,
but just the instructional putit together yourself.
But still the memes and thevideos and jokes about putting
together the furniture wrong.
There's only a certain level ofyou know putting that under the
(22:04):
customer that the customer canhandle.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, we're seeing the trends very much shift from
a generation of do it yourselfto very much a generation of do
it for me.
Look at your DIFM.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
I'm a millennial, come on.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
No, that's true.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Here.
It's because people are morepeople live in the city, maybe
because of the specialization ofour careers.
We're not so general storeanymore.
We're a little bit more like Ido, b2b, saas tech marketing.
It's like very specific careerpaths those are definitely known
(22:52):
for letting other people do theservice side, do the labor,
install my TV.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I relate.
I mean, as a elder millennial,I would say that, especially as
we all have, you know, or youmay have a growing family and
you just don't have the timethese days.
I mean, do you want to spendtwo hours putting a car battery
or a boat battery in yourself,or just want to pull up
somewhere and have it done?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah yeah, there's a market stewardship program and I
was really curious more detailson that.
I kind of saw a little bit, butwould you be able to explain
that to me?
Sure.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
As context for anyone who may not be familiar with
kind of franchise models, Iwould say, as a franchise grows
and you grow in a DMA, everyfranchise, in addition to paying
a royalty, also pays a requiredmarketing contribution.
Yeah, in our case, 4%.
You know, when a DMA gets to acertain size with a certain
(23:55):
number of stores, they're ableto start a co-op and that co-op
may be shared across differentowners.
In Atlanta, what we've hadhappen when a franchise reaches
a certain level of maturity,you're able to attract and
invite owners of significant networth to who want to
participate in the business, tobegin consolidating.
(24:18):
We had an owner come in for asmall amount of stores and then
see the potential, see thesuccess and then begin having
more conversations with us.
Again, this is a businesspartnership which is really
fulfilling from a retailstandpoint when you have a great
franchisee who is not justwaiting for you to bring ideas
(24:38):
to the table and bring newproducts.
They're like hey, can we dothis?
Hey, can you help us do this?
Like, hey, we want to get big,we want to get big fast.
They, of their own volition,started talking to other owners
in the market and acquiringother stores while they were
working with us on buildingstores and came to a
conversation of can we buy outall the other territories,
(25:00):
available territories in themarket and essentially close
down the market from an openingstandpoint, because we operate
from a standpoint of everymarket's open until it's sold.
We don't have any, or wepreviously didn't have any,
closed markets and we made thisopportunity or we worked with
(25:23):
them on the opportunity, andthis is all the open territories
.
We would see, and they havealmost acquired all of the other
owners in the market With that.
We created this marketstewardship program to help them
grow.
Back to my point about DMAs anddifferent people.
(25:44):
That is a game changer from Abecause all of a sudden now you
have one owner that controls allthe marketing spend in that
co-op, in that DMA.
What's a DMA?
The defined marketing area.
That's how advertisers look atyou may be in this television
(26:07):
market.
You may be and this is whereall the TV stations are selling
ads, how marketers divide paidmedia across the United States
based on population and wherepeople conduct trade Through
that.
Now that opens up a ton ofopportunity because we also
(26:29):
allow one of the challenges in afranchise environment, as you
may have two differentfranchises and they may want to
sell different items fordifferent prices.
Now you've got an entire DMA.
Marketing is being controlledby one person.
All the commercial accounts aregoing to one person.
Returns, Returns, all of thosethings go to one person and you
(26:51):
have the ability to set andadvertise a common price across
an entire DMA.
That's a huge advantage fromtaking our brand out of more
demand-based marketingapproaches and really helping us
create brand awareness in amarket on an overall basis,
(27:13):
because there's no disagreementsabout how this money should get
spent.
And hey, I want this justaround my store, I want you to
send out a postcard just aboutmy one little store, or I want
more index to TV ads for thisaudience.
No, you've got now what I wouldcompare to a more conventional
marketing approach that allowsus to compete more with whether
(27:37):
it's big box or other specialtyretailers in our types of spaces
to create that awareness as theone-stop shop for any battery
you need.
What if he?
Speaker 1 (27:47):
buys more.
What if this group ends upcovering the whole state?
Do you think there are anythingto look out for as that grows?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Through our processes .
Our biggest worry is about whensomeone expands that big and
that fast and this program hasbeen.
I think we're probably in yeartwo or three of their maturity
in the system.
Our concerns would bepeople-based and I think theirs
would be as well.
You've got to have those greattechnicians, those great
(28:23):
managers to enable thatexpansion.
You've got to have thosetraining programs.
You've got to have that abovestore.
You've got to build out thatabove store leadership and
that's where we have a greatstaff on our team that has
background in Sam's Club, therefrom Bentonville and other top
tier retailers Cabela's and manyothers that we can show.
(28:48):
These are the best practicesyou need to get bigger and will
even help them pause, stabilizeafter you expand and then get
ready for the next step.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
If you're an umbrella over multiple stores, there's
another set of corporatestructure and then the owned and
operated, the owner, manager,single store.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, and most franchisees need coaching and
support to grow into that, whichis something we partner with
them on, and in the case of thisgroup, they have other.
They're also in RVs and they'reexperienced multi-unit owners
and so they're definitely notcoming in green, but we still
want them to and want to partnerwith them on going at the right
(29:45):
pace and making sure they'vegot the talent they need to be
successful, because we're onlysuccessful if they're successful
.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yep, yep, you're tied together, tied success.
I have a question about thefuture and, from your
perspective, I feel like youwould have some insights on what
the future of batteries couldbe.
We talked a little bit aboutthat.
You talked about in-homebattery backup and all that.
(30:20):
What do you see happening thatmay impact a lot of people in
just the technology side ofbatteries?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yeah, from a technology standpoint, I think
I'd go back to just theproliferation of batteries and
more and more things that don'thave them today and the other
complications that's going topresent to customers.
And how are you going to managethose devices?
(30:52):
Where are you going to findthat battery?
Those are all going to bechallenges to the customer.
I think we're also going to seean increased reliance on more
advanced lithium-typechemistries and batteries as
well, and that's where we'reworking today.
One of the things most peopledon't know about us again back
(31:14):
to brand awareness is we are alarge recycle of batteries.
We are recycling over 40million pounds of batteries a
year through our stores and thatvolume of recycling and putting
those precious metals back intothe battery ecosystem
(31:34):
domestically is a priority notonly for us but for our country
and you're seeing that with alot of investments that have
come out of the infrastructurebill and I think the hope is
over time, certainly with theinvestments the country is
making a shorter supply chainyou're going to see more access
to these batteries and, onewould hope, cost advantages for
(31:58):
customers over time andhopefully you're still going to
need great service to find thebattery you need and get it
installed in your device whenyou have an issue.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
What about on the retail side, just the retail
industry in general?
When you're seeing this levelof customer service, this level
of care, that's quite anachievement in terms of the
satisfaction.
Do you have any futurepredictions for what the
(32:32):
customer would want in general,across the board in retail?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, I think, like most in retail, we're all
looking to AI right now andwe're no different.
And from a in-store retailcustomer standpoint, we're
already starting to use tools togenerate content and answers
(33:00):
that make it easier forcustomers to find batteries and
for our associates in the storeto find them as well.
And I think there could verymuch be a case for even you're
still going to need a.
There will always be for us aphysical service component of
(33:21):
putting a battery in the rightthing for you, but there will
100% be a AI self-servicecomponent that should be created
over time to help customersdiscover what they need easier
and even help that transactionalong in a positive way that
(33:44):
still requires service but makesit a smoother experience for
our customer coming into thestore.
And we're already seeing I meanfrom my standpoint.
I think that we are in a littlebit of a wild west of the AI era
.
It reminds me of the early daysof social media, where small
(34:07):
businesses and small businessowners could get out there on
social media and drum up a tonof traffic before any of that
was really monetized, and Ithink we're in a little bit of
the same era in companies.
These tools are out there foranyone to use.
We're working with several ofour vendors today and testing
various co-pilots and othertools as well and working with
(34:27):
them on the front end to reallyjust benefit from these
economies of scale before theyget fully monetized.
And I think that's anopportunity that, because we're
a franchise to work and we'relean, we're able to move fast
and do that.
And I think that's anotheradvantage we have over some of
the more monolithic retailersright now where decisions take
(34:49):
time.
Here we like to say we're not abattleship, we're a pirate ship
.
We can move fast.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Wow, I like that you can kind of shift and actually
you can send out little testboats yeah, that's right, little
speed boats that you pick oneor two locations with a store
franchisee that's reallyinterested in the innovation.
Give it a try, see if it works,and maybe it doesn't work in
(35:21):
every market.
It's been really interestingjust hearing about the business
model and the tech and yourpredictions for the future.
I appreciate all these insights.
Do you have any closingthoughts or anything that you'd
like to share?
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Jayce, I appreciate the time.
From our standpoint, we believethat the growth of our business
is, and the growth of ourbusiness model is not only
something that's good forcustomers, it's good for
fulfilling the American dream.
We want to continue to not onlygrow retail and the specialty
(36:01):
retail services we provide, butwe want to help people grow
their businesses and communitiesacross the country and be
hyper-local and be able to movefast and respond and test things
and meet the needs of customersacross the country and see them
(36:22):
be successful.
That's the magic of BatteriesPlus and the magic of
franchising that we think is sospecial in this model and that,
as fast as technology ischanging, it's fun to see
250-plus owners responding tothose changes every day in their
(36:43):
markets, not just us sitting uphere in Wisconsin responding to
those changes.
It's great to have that manybusiness partners out there
helping us tackle these issuesevery day.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, you get to hear what works really quickly.
Yes, we do.
That's great.
Well, that concludes theinterview, with thanks to all
those who are listening totoday's episode.
If you found today's discussionvaluable, hit the subscribe
button on your favorite podcastplatform.
We'll be doing a lot more ofthese.
For the latest news, engagingdiscussions and a community of
(37:16):
retail enthusiasts, be sure tojoin our daily newsletter at
retailwirecom.
See you next time.
Welcome to the Retail Wire podcast, your go-to source
for all things retail.
Whether you're a seasonedindustry veteran or just dipping
your toes into the world ofretail, our podcast is the place
for the latest trends, insightsand discussions that are
shaping the future of retail.
I'm your host, chase Binney,and today I'm joined by John
Seca, the Chief Business Officerfor Batteries Plus.
(00:36):
Hey, john, how are you doing?
Good, chase, how are you?
I'm doing well.
I'm excited to have you on thisepisode.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I know a lot of people.
They don't even realize howmany batteries they're using
every day.
So I'm really excited to diginto this topic from a practical
standpoint and from a businessstandpoint, and what you guys
are up to at Batteries Plus.
Tell us a little bit about yourcurrent role and the focus in
your career.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, thank you.
My current role as ChiefBusiness Officer.
I get to work with teams acrossthe business, from franchising
to technology to storedevelopment and BI.
As I look at our business, mymain role is helping our
franchisees be successful andcome into our system and help
(01:27):
grow our model as a franchisor.
We rely on investors coming inand building stores and
expanding our brand across theUnited States.
We're at 720 stores and growingin 48 states and Puerto Rico.
As a franchisor, it isincumbent upon us to provide we
(01:50):
are the business partners to allof our store operators.
As a business partner, we'vegot to provide all the insights
from you would get at a majorretailer, from merchandising to
marketing to technology support.
With my team, we focus on notonly helping people join the
(02:11):
business, be trained and besuccessful as a owner through
developing stores, but also howwe're developing our technology
platforms to support our owners,whether it's in ordering
inventory, creating marketingplans, creating B2B email
campaigns or whatever the casemay be.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's really interesting that the franchise
model unlocks that extrapartnership framework.
Have you always worked in afranchise model retailer or have
you come here from anothermodel?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, I came up in a more conventional specialty
retail business, an outdoorcompany called Cabela's.
I worked there many years andthrough that business, many of
those lessons and specialtyretail and how you succeed in
specialty retail whether it's ina big box or small box format,
it's all the line upon creatingthat selling culture and
(03:11):
creating that competitiveadvantage.
When people are coming to aspecialty retail, they're coming
there for a reason eitherbecause you have bigger
selection, you offer service,there is some component there
that you are leaning into from aspecialty standpoint.
It's not just EDLP, everydaylow price.
(03:33):
After my career at Cabela'stransitioned to restaurants, I
got into the franchise industryand learned quite a bit about
franchising at Waterburger,which grew very quickly as a
franchise business, learned, wasable to benefit from their
decades of successful franchiserelationships and experience,
(03:54):
and then was able to bring thatwith me to Battery Spluzz when I
joined this brand in 2019.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Was there a switch?
I'm imagining there's a bigdifference between the Cabela's
and the franchise model atBattery Spluzz.
Is there a superpower?
A little switch that has toswitch in your brain in order to
make it work?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
There is and you know , and really you know there's
two switches.
I mean the, the.
The first is economic.
In a franchise model, you knowwe live off a 5% royalty as the
franchise or you are not.
You know when you think aboutproduct costs and you know set
top-line sales.
Yes, you want to go top-linesales because you're making a
(04:40):
royalty off those top-line sales, but you're keeping your
franchise partners in businessby making sure that there's
enough gross margin after that5% royalty to make them rich and
make them, make them successfuland make them want to build
more stores.
So that's one switch and theother switch.
You know and you know mainlineretail.
You can be much more taskoriented in, you know.
(05:02):
You know sending out.
You know through a flexus oranother task management system,
you know set this plan, graham,send me a photo, make it, make
it happen, order this inventory.
And you're working off, youknow your balance sheet.
As a large corporation, we'reworking off around 260 mini
balance sheets and creatingcampaigns of influence to Make
(05:26):
the an economic valueproposition to our franchisees
about.
This is why you want to buythis product.
It's going to deliver this foryou and this many transactions
and this meant muchprofitability and this is why we
want you to make this changeright away.
And you know, sure, as afranchise or you know some,
there's a spectrum of you knowcompliance and accountability,
(05:49):
and most franchisors have broadpower and control to you know,
exert their, their directivesometimes, but yeah, at the end
of the day, this is a businesspartnership.
You want to have a goodrelationship with your
franchisees and you want to, youknow, lean way more towards you
know, the carrot than the stickand, in my opinion, yeah, that
(06:09):
makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
In some ways.
You have less control of what'sgoing on, but on the other hand
, you don't you're notresponsible for what happens
Downstream.
So you kind of make this you'reusing your funding to to make
that demand and then drivepeople To those products or to
those stores.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, our ultimate accountability is to, you know,
our franchisee success andthat's how we look at it.
We want them to be successful,we want them to be highly
profitable and, you know we wantthem to continue to expand and,
you know, have confidence inthe system and the, the products
and the, the brand awarenessthat we're generating overall.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I heard somewhere in an interview that batteries plus
is unique and they said theyyou have no direct competitors,
which was hard for me to believe.
But what?
What do?
What would they mean by that?
Could you tell us more aboutjust the batteries plus
positioning?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, when you you think about our business model
overall, you could say wecompete with everybody and you
could say we compete with nobody.
And if you took the line of,you know we're not gonna compete
with a Walmart or an Amazon ona double-a alkaline battery that
you know you can get by thoseanywhere.
(07:26):
Yes, we offer them, but that'snot where you know we excel.
We excel when customers comeinto our stores and you know
this is where the batteryindustry, and you know its
evolution, is really helping us.
Yes, more and more things haveembedded batteries.
You can't just pop out it's notjust a double-a and say, hey,
what is this like?
(07:47):
I've never seen this before.
Help me find this.
And and that's where our largersort men and long tail of Skews
and you know the systems we'vedeveloped over 30 years in
business and the, the, theproduct libraries and the deep
PIM Expertise that we have me aproduct information management
Allows us to help any associateyou come in to find what you're
(08:08):
looking for.
Yeah, with those crossreferences, to be able to say,
yeah, we know what that is andlook like an expert and then not
only sell you the battery butthen help you install it.
Back to what is our valueproposition as a specialty
retailer.
It is.
There's really service attachedwith every sale.
We will help you and we'll fixyour problem.
(08:29):
And you know and in our case youknow we say, yeah, there's,
there's no one else out there.
You know competing like this isyou can go buy those products.
You can try to find, you know,a Battery with a 20 digit serial
number on Amazon, but you maynot know and you may get it in
two days.
You know, if you have a primemembership, we offer that.
(08:49):
You know, at 720 locations.
You know right now, and youknow we even see that in our buy
online, pick up and store data,where you know most items are
Fulfilled within six hoursbecause people need what we sell
Right now.
It's not like, hey, I can waitthree days for this to show up.
No, I need this device.
I need this yeah thing to befixed, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Thinking of a battery remote that's like the, the
interchangeable little annoyingthing that, oh no, it's not
working.
Or you get the warning it sayslow battery and then you never.
You never buy batteries untilit actually dies.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
You want it right now .
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, but that's that's something unique that I
don't think about, because thisshift is happening and, and I
don't know, someone coined theterm, was it?
Was it you coined the term, thebattery movement?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
It may have been.
It may have been.
We talk a lot about itinternally.
You know, for a couple ofreasons, there is, you know, the
proliferation of batteries anddevices of every kind.
Everything is connected.
Now most of those are embeddedbatteries.
And you know the interestingthing about our businesses were
70 percent retail, 30 percentcommercial or B2B, and you know
(10:08):
there's even more an impact fromthe, the Internet, of things on
the B2B side.
Then there is sometimes on theB2C side of you think of, you
know, you know devices in everybusiness, whether it's exit
signs or, you know, industrialmachinery, that are all battery
powered.
Now the other piece of the, thebattery movement, if you will,
(10:29):
is the, the shift away from, youknow, petroleum based.
You know, power generation.
You know.
Especially, you know, forpeople's homes, you know it's
much easier to a, charge andmaintain a battery pack In your
home.
Then it is to you constantlymaintain a generator, you know,
change the oil.
You have all that waste, haveall that mass and you could just
(10:52):
have a nice clean battery packin the closet for when you need
to.
You know, run something in apinch, there's a lot here to
unpack.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
I see a change from that interchangeable, you know,
small device kind of battery,where it's more of a commodity.
Oh yeah, I'll pick up a pack ofthose and, like people, I don't
know if people have a loyaltyto this brand or that brand.
It's kind of kind of all oneand the same it's price.
Yeah.
Price and availability yeah,you're almost.
(11:20):
You're almost just because ofthe market and the way that
technology is changing.
You're almost becoming more ofa technology company because of
how integrated batteries areinto the products.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, that's something we think about a lot.
People are creating thosebatteries for very specific
devices and for their parodies.
It could be an aesthetic reason, it could be a performance
reason.
They may like, hey, I want itto fit inside this phone, or I
may want it to fit insidesomething else, and that's where
you may say, well, geez, Idon't know if Apple or somebody
(11:55):
else makes a battery, that couldmake it hard for you guys.
And that's where many and weappreciate the will of consumers
getting expressed through ourlegislators, where you're right
to repair laws help our businessbut also customers be able to
go in.
An automaker can't lock thehood of their car.
(12:15):
If you buy a car, you need tobe able to buy any replacement
parts wherever you want.
And it's the same concept formany of these devices and
similar laws apply where, yeah,if a customer wants to replace
it, there's nothing stoppingpeople, especially where those
devices are getting a lot ofpopularity.
We have replacements forwhether it's a Dyson vacuum or a
(12:40):
Wumba iPhones, in addition tothe large automobile batteries
and even larger industrialbatteries that we specialize in
today.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Right, Is that practice still happening, where
the product manufacturer isdesigning an embedded thing that
they know will die so that youhave to buy it again?
Or is that part of thatlegislation?
Is there something that you'reseeing for the laws?
I actually had no idea thatthere were laws against making
things irreplaceable.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's, you know, we see that.
You know, with our friends atApple, I mean, there are
aftermarket batteries and youknow we have internal facilities
here on our campus in Wisconsinthat you know will test
aftermarket batteries to ensureOEM grade or better performance.
But you know, apple is reallyleading the way and have been
(13:35):
great right to repair advocatesand they're even providing tools
.
And you know those parts arevery below on the consumer
marketplace today in ways theynever did before.
And again, from a retailstandpoint, well, jesus, john,
does that make it harder to, youknow, sell?
And it's like well, no, becausewe're still selling.
You know, the parts have beenout there for a long time.
(13:57):
We're selling the service.
Like, believe me, I've done therepairs.
There are a lot of tiny screws,you do not want to mess that up
.
Yeah, so we've got a, you know,very thorough trading system
and tools that helps ourtechnicians.
Okay, every screw goes into acertain order in a certain box,
(14:17):
you know.
And because, again, that's ouradvantage and that's what we're
providing to customers from youknow, a vendor standpoint, I
think you will see more and morespecialty batteries.
But again, most of thosebatteries are just cells and
some are wired togetherdifferently.
And you know we call the batterypack sometimes and we've
(14:38):
actually found that has been agreat source of commercial
revenue for us to this point,whether it's for government
applications or other commercialaviation applications.
You name the industry.
We probably do a custom batterypack for somebody and, yeah, as
that business grows, you know,we think, you know we have the
(14:59):
capability to build thosebattery packs in our stores and
to replace those.
You know, when it's just hey,I've got these three cells wired
together, taped together, likewe do that.
Wow, yeah, the stories from my,the stories I've heard from
some of our franchisees wouldblow you mind, from you know one
of them in Arizona who you knowis the only one that makes a
(15:20):
certain battery pack that goesin the cockpit of commercial
airlines to.
You know one in Florida thathas worked on you know secret
government things for the Navythat have you know gone into.
You know underwater submarinesand I mean it's like wow, like I
had no idea this is going on ina tiny little batteries plus
store.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Sure, yeah, I want to dive deep on that secret
government thing that you'redoing.
It's just clicking back to this, this franchise model.
I never thought how that mayempower this much innovation,
right, because you know, in anormal scenario like Florida,
(16:01):
the Florida store manager mightsay, hey, we've got this really
weird opportunity.
And it'd be like, nope, it'snot in there, nope, we're not
doing that, but there's.
There are all these like littleopportunities that a store
franchisee would be able to takeon as an entrepreneurial
venture, correct?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah, that's the magic of franchising and the
magic of entrepreneurialthinking that you know to your
point.
You know, if a you know NavySEAL walks in and says, hey guys
, can you make me one of these?
You know if it was a storemanager and most retail chains,
and you know, not a knock.
I think you know all of us inthe industry I mean I mean most
(16:44):
managers be like, yeah, we don'tcare anything like that,
whereas you know, in ourfranchise model, we, you know,
when you open a store, you getall of these tools and we also
have a library of tools and ayou know literal battery lab as
part of our campus where afranchisee can call it.
Be like, hey, a guy came intoday and he had this battery
(17:04):
pack and it's got thisspecification Can you help me
make one?
Or can you give?
You know, I get the parts tomake one?
And we'll be like, yeah, yeah,we'll help with that and we'll
help you test it and we'll helpyou figure that battery pack out
.
And to enable our franchises togo after those opportunities
and, you know, enable them to beentrepreneurs in their markets
(17:28):
and grow their businesses, youknow, by whatever way they can,
because you know, for them, forour franchises, I mean, this is
an investment, that this isabout creating generational
wealth for their families, andthat's what we want to enable.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
It's a refreshing perspective.
We also learned that you'vebeen breaking multiple company
records and doing it veryquickly, thinking, since you
have no direct competitors, youcould tell us the sauce.
What's been playing the mostsignificant roles for you guys?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Well, you know one of them.
I mean because you know we haveno direct competitors and you
know people think of batteriesplus and most people you know
you drive by the store and yousay you know batteries plus on a
double A batteries, maybe somelight bulbs.
You know you don't necessarilythink of everything that we do,
which it goes from, yes, yournormal household batteries to
(18:20):
large commercial batteries, carbatteries, boat batteries, where
we motorcycle batteries, wherewe have a wider selection than
anybody else, and we, you knowwe'll install it for you, like
you don't have to call adealership or call a auto shop
and make it a form.
You can just come in, we'lljust vote in for you.
And also, you know key fobreplacement and key fob
(18:41):
programming.
You know most vehicles comewith key fobs today and if you
went to a dealership that maycost you $350 to get a key fob
replace, you know we'll do itfor less than half of that.
And again, like mountainappointment, you probably may
not have to wait.
You know we will have the part.
(19:02):
You know you just drive up andyou know take 15 minutes, go
outside and make it happen.
And it's that you know immediate.
You know servicing thoseimmediate needs is where we
found our niche, because youknow the things we do, would we
are able to do in a franchisemodel would be very hard for a
big box to do and it requiresthat you.
(19:23):
You know you have greatfranchisees who are engaged in
their business, that want to,you know, invest in retaining
people, invest in retaininggreat management and technicians
to be able to do these things,and that is, I think, the model
is as much a secret sauce asanything.
And you know, from a brandawareness standpoint, we have
(19:45):
Medalia as our customerexperience source of record and
you know our net promoter scoreis in the mid 80s, which most
people, when we find it hard tobelieve that it's that high.
Yeah, because you know when weare.
You are coming to us in yourtime of greatest need or a time
(20:06):
of great need and we're solving,we're making your day better,
we're solving your issue thereon the spot, and that's you know
why.
You know customers love us andfrom working at other businesses
you know at.
You know Cabela's especially,you would look at, okay, we're
looking at.
You know customers.
You know male demographic age.
You know 40 to 60 prime earningyears who are participating in
(20:29):
outdoor activities.
You know everybody uses ourproducts.
You know our customer base ispeople across the board, and so
we've been setting recordsbecause people just haven't seen
us coming, which we like, andyou know it's very hard for our.
You know competitors in oursame categories, whether it's
pure play commerce or you knowbrick and mortar to keep up with
(20:54):
the level of service we're ableto deliver.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
A lot of retailers want to have that level of
customer service.
Because of the install piece,you were required to have that
and it ends up sounding likethat's.
That's one of your advantages.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Something that someone may havesaid man, I wish that these
things install themselves, butyou wouldn't.
(21:18):
You wouldn't have that netpromoter score as high as you
would if the product justinstalled itself.
Yep, correct.
They might even be morefrustrated because it says it
installs itself and it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, yeah, you get home and you try to take
something apart and like, uh-oh,I've gone in too deep yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Like Ikea has kind of mastered that.
I don't know how much furtherthey'll be able to go with this,
but just the instructional putit together yourself.
But still the memes and thevideos and jokes about putting
together the furniture wrong.
There's only a certain level ofyou know putting that under the
(22:04):
customer that the customer canhandle.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, we're seeing the trends very much shift from
a generation of do it yourselfto very much a generation of do
it for me.
Look at your DIFM.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
I'm a millennial, come on.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
No, that's true.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Here.
It's because people are morepeople live in the city, maybe
because of the specialization ofour careers.
We're not so general storeanymore.
We're a little bit more like Ido, b2b, saas tech marketing.
It's like very specific careerpaths those are definitely known
(22:52):
for letting other people do theservice side, do the labor,
install my TV.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I relate.
I mean, as a elder millennial,I would say that, especially as
we all have, you know, or youmay have a growing family and
you just don't have the timethese days.
I mean, do you want to spendtwo hours putting a car battery
or a boat battery in yourself,or just want to pull up
somewhere and have it done?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah yeah, there's a market stewardship program and I
was really curious more detailson that.
I kind of saw a little bit, butwould you be able to explain
that to me?
Sure.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
As context for anyone who may not be familiar with
kind of franchise models, Iwould say, as a franchise grows
and you grow in a DMA, everyfranchise, in addition to paying
a royalty, also pays a requiredmarketing contribution.
Yeah, in our case, 4%.
You know, when a DMA gets to acertain size with a certain
(23:55):
number of stores, they're ableto start a co-op and that co-op
may be shared across differentowners.
In Atlanta, what we've hadhappen when a franchise reaches
a certain level of maturity,you're able to attract and
invite owners of significant networth to who want to
participate in the business, tobegin consolidating.
(24:18):
We had an owner come in for asmall amount of stores and then
see the potential, see thesuccess and then begin having
more conversations with us.
Again, this is a businesspartnership which is really
fulfilling from a retailstandpoint when you have a great
franchisee who is not justwaiting for you to bring ideas
(24:38):
to the table and bring newproducts.
They're like hey, can we dothis?
Hey, can you help us do this?
Like, hey, we want to get big,we want to get big fast.
They, of their own volition,started talking to other owners
in the market and acquiringother stores while they were
working with us on buildingstores and came to a
conversation of can we buy outall the other territories,
(25:00):
available territories in themarket and essentially close
down the market from an openingstandpoint, because we operate
from a standpoint of everymarket's open until it's sold.
We don't have any, or wepreviously didn't have any,
closed markets and we made thisopportunity or we worked with
(25:23):
them on the opportunity, andthis is all the open territories
.
We would see, and they havealmost acquired all of the other
owners in the market With that.
We created this marketstewardship program to help them
grow.
Back to my point about DMAs anddifferent people.
(25:44):
That is a game changer from Abecause all of a sudden now you
have one owner that controls allthe marketing spend in that
co-op, in that DMA.
What's a DMA?
The defined marketing area.
That's how advertisers look atyou may be in this television
(26:07):
market.
You may be and this is whereall the TV stations are selling
ads, how marketers divide paidmedia across the United States
based on population and wherepeople conduct trade Through
that.
Now that opens up a ton ofopportunity because we also
(26:29):
allow one of the challenges in afranchise environment, as you
may have two differentfranchises and they may want to
sell different items fordifferent prices.
Now you've got an entire DMA.
Marketing is being controlledby one person.
All the commercial accounts aregoing to one person.
Returns, Returns, all of thosethings go to one person and you
(26:51):
have the ability to set andadvertise a common price across
an entire DMA.
That's a huge advantage fromtaking our brand out of more
demand-based marketingapproaches and really helping us
create brand awareness in amarket on an overall basis,
(27:13):
because there's no disagreementsabout how this money should get
spent.
And hey, I want this justaround my store, I want you to
send out a postcard just aboutmy one little store, or I want
more index to TV ads for thisaudience.
No, you've got now what I wouldcompare to a more conventional
marketing approach that allowsus to compete more with whether
(27:37):
it's big box or other specialtyretailers in our types of spaces
to create that awareness as theone-stop shop for any battery
you need.
What if he?
Speaker 1 (27:47):
buys more.
What if this group ends upcovering the whole state?
Do you think there are anythingto look out for as that grows?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Through our processes .
Our biggest worry is about whensomeone expands that big and
that fast and this program hasbeen.
I think we're probably in yeartwo or three of their maturity
in the system.
Our concerns would bepeople-based and I think theirs
would be as well.
You've got to have those greattechnicians, those great
(28:23):
managers to enable thatexpansion.
You've got to have thosetraining programs.
You've got to have that abovestore.
You've got to build out thatabove store leadership and
that's where we have a greatstaff on our team that has
background in Sam's Club, therefrom Bentonville and other top
tier retailers Cabela's and manyothers that we can show.
(28:48):
These are the best practicesyou need to get bigger and will
even help them pause, stabilizeafter you expand and then get
ready for the next step.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
If you're an umbrella over multiple stores, there's
another set of corporatestructure and then the owned and
operated, the owner, manager,single store.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, and most franchisees need coaching and
support to grow into that, whichis something we partner with
them on, and in the case of thisgroup, they have other.
They're also in RVs and they'reexperienced multi-unit owners
and so they're definitely notcoming in green, but we still
want them to and want to partnerwith them on going at the right
(29:45):
pace and making sure they'vegot the talent they need to be
successful, because we're onlysuccessful if they're successful
.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yep, yep, you're tied together, tied success.
I have a question about thefuture and, from your
perspective, I feel like youwould have some insights on what
the future of batteries couldbe.
We talked a little bit aboutthat.
You talked about in-homebattery backup and all that.
(30:20):
What do you see happening thatmay impact a lot of people in
just the technology side ofbatteries?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yeah, from a technology standpoint, I think
I'd go back to just theproliferation of batteries and
more and more things that don'thave them today and the other
complications that's going topresent to customers.
And how are you going to managethose devices?
(30:52):
Where are you going to findthat battery?
Those are all going to bechallenges to the customer.
I think we're also going to seean increased reliance on more
advanced lithium-typechemistries and batteries as
well, and that's where we'reworking today.
One of the things most peopledon't know about us again back
(31:14):
to brand awareness is we are alarge recycle of batteries.
We are recycling over 40million pounds of batteries a
year through our stores and thatvolume of recycling and putting
those precious metals back intothe battery ecosystem
(31:34):
domestically is a priority notonly for us but for our country
and you're seeing that with alot of investments that have
come out of the infrastructurebill and I think the hope is
over time, certainly with theinvestments the country is
making a shorter supply chainyou're going to see more access
to these batteries and, onewould hope, cost advantages for
(31:58):
customers over time andhopefully you're still going to
need great service to find thebattery you need and get it
installed in your device whenyou have an issue.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
What about on the retail side, just the retail
industry in general?
When you're seeing this levelof customer service, this level
of care, that's quite anachievement in terms of the
satisfaction.
Do you have any futurepredictions for what the
(32:32):
customer would want in general,across the board in retail?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, I think, like most in retail, we're all
looking to AI right now andwe're no different.
And from a in-store retailcustomer standpoint, we're
already starting to use tools togenerate content and answers
(33:00):
that make it easier forcustomers to find batteries and
for our associates in the storeto find them as well.
And I think there could verymuch be a case for even you're
still going to need a.
There will always be for us aphysical service component of
(33:21):
putting a battery in the rightthing for you, but there will
100% be a AI self-servicecomponent that should be created
over time to help customersdiscover what they need easier
and even help that transactionalong in a positive way that
(33:44):
still requires service but makesit a smoother experience for
our customer coming into thestore.
And we're already seeing I meanfrom my standpoint.
I think that we are in a littlebit of a wild west of the AI era
.
It reminds me of the early daysof social media, where small
(34:07):
businesses and small businessowners could get out there on
social media and drum up a tonof traffic before any of that
was really monetized, and Ithink we're in a little bit of
the same era in companies.
These tools are out there foranyone to use.
We're working with several ofour vendors today and testing
various co-pilots and othertools as well and working with
(34:27):
them on the front end to reallyjust benefit from these
economies of scale before theyget fully monetized.
And I think that's anopportunity that, because we're
a franchise to work and we'relean, we're able to move fast
and do that.
And I think that's anotheradvantage we have over some of
the more monolithic retailersright now where decisions take
(34:49):
time.
Here we like to say we're not abattleship, we're a pirate ship
.
We can move fast.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Wow, I like that you can kind of shift and actually
you can send out little testboats yeah, that's right, little
speed boats that you pick oneor two locations with a store
franchisee that's reallyinterested in the innovation.
Give it a try, see if it works,and maybe it doesn't work in
(35:21):
every market.
It's been really interestingjust hearing about the business
model and the tech and yourpredictions for the future.
I appreciate all these insights.
Do you have any closingthoughts or anything that you'd
like to share?
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Jayce, I appreciate the time.
From our standpoint, we believethat the growth of our business
is, and the growth of ourbusiness model is not only
something that's good forcustomers, it's good for
fulfilling the American dream.
We want to continue to not onlygrow retail and the specialty
(36:01):
retail services we provide, butwe want to help people grow
their businesses and communitiesacross the country and be
hyper-local and be able to movefast and respond and test things
and meet the needs of customersacross the country and see them
(36:22):
be successful.
That's the magic of BatteriesPlus and the magic of
franchising that we think is sospecial in this model and that,
as fast as technology ischanging, it's fun to see
250-plus owners responding tothose changes every day in their
(36:43):
markets, not just us sitting uphere in Wisconsin responding to
those changes.
It's great to have that manybusiness partners out there
helping us tackle these issuesevery day.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, you get to hear what works really quickly.
Yes, we do.
That's great.
Well, that concludes theinterview, with thanks to all
those who are listening totoday's episode.
If you found today's discussionvaluable, hit the subscribe
button on your favorite podcastplatform.
We'll be doing a lot more ofthese.
For the latest news, engagingdiscussions and a community of
(37:16):
retail enthusiasts, be sure tojoin our daily newsletter at
retailwirecom.
See you next time.
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