Proposal for the Supply of Appliances-Help Needed.

Off Topic
1

I’m working at a major appliance store that is located in a very small town ( <10000). There is currently a construction project going on that will need to be out fitted with appliances. They will need ranges, microwaves, fridges and washer/dryers. As an upcoming business student (starting in May) I would like to take this as an opportunity to draw up a proposal for supplying all the appliances. This would be primarily for my own enjoyment and of course the experience. This project is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 low income housing units, so the main concern when selecting the appliances will be cost. Our store does not do deliveries so arranging delivery with the construction company or possibly with the local company that we often contract our deliveries out to will need to be taken into consideration. Because we are the only national appliance store in town I believe that competitors will have a hard time beating us when both cost and proximity to the site are taken into consideration. Essentially I can have all the product shipped to our store which is within 10 blocks of the site, from there my thought is to have the local moving company take it the rest of the way. I estimate the total cost for this to be much less than purchasing appliances from the second closest store which is more than 50 miles away.

Some bullet point questions-

Lets say that a company is building a 100 unit apartment, where do they typically buy the appliances from? Do they go direct through the wholesaler or would they sometimes purchase through department stores? For many brands I don’t see how you could go through anyone other than the retailer. Example - Kenmore is a Sears brand, If you want Kenmore appliances you have to buy them from Sears.

What would the formatting look like for such a proposal? I’m somewhat competent with spreadsheets and plan to use them.

What areas should I cover? There are obvious ones like COST and DELIVERY but i’m also wondering about other things like trying to sell them on “buying local”, the ease of delivery with us vs competitors, variety of brands available etc, financing options etc.

I plan to draw up numerous options to include appliances at different price points, what should be some things to consider when doing this? take into consideration that these are low income homes.

I know that some of you might regard the success of this as little unlikely given my experience. In small towns like this though things are done MUCH differently. Most people have very little experience and deals like this are usually made sorta “on a whim” with very little planning and analysis. So, with that in mind i’m somewhat confident that any such pre-planned, well thought out analysis of the situation will be well received.

Please feel free to ask any questions, any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

2

[quote]tmay11 wrote:

I’m working at a major appliance store that is located in a very small town ( <10000). There is currently a construction project going on that will need to be out fitted with appliances. They will need ranges, microwaves, fridges and washer/dryers. As an upcoming business student (starting in May) I would like to take this as an opportunity to draw up a proposal for supplying all the appliances. This would be primarily for my own enjoyment and of course the experience. This project is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 low income housing units, so the main concern when selecting the appliances will be cost. Our store does not do deliveries so arranging delivery with the construction company or possibly with the local company that we often contract our deliveries out to will need to be taken into consideration. Because we are the only national appliance store in town I believe that competitors will have a hard time beating us when both cost and proximity to the site are taken into consideration. Essentially I can have all the product shipped to our store which is within 10 blocks of the site, from there my thought is to have the local moving company take it the rest of the way. I estimate the total cost for this to be much less than purchasing appliances from the second closest store which is more than 50 miles away.

Some bullet point questions-

Lets say that a company is building a 100 unit apartment, where do they typically buy the appliances from? Do they go direct through the wholesaler or would they sometimes purchase through department stores? For many brands I don’t see how you could go through anyone other than the retailer. Example - Kenmore is a Sears brand, If you want Kenmore appliances you have to buy them from Sears.

What would the formatting look like for such a proposal? I’m somewhat competent with spreadsheets and plan to use them.

What areas should I cover? There are obvious ones like COST and DELIVERY but i’m also wondering about other things like trying to sell them on “buying local”, the ease of delivery with us vs competitors, variety of brands available etc, financing options etc.

I plan to draw up numerous options to include appliances at different price points, what should be some things to consider when doing this? take into consideration that these are low income homes.

I know that some of you might regard the success of this as little unlikely given my experience. In small towns like this though things are done MUCH differently. Most people have very little experience and deals like this are usually made sorta “on a whim” with very little planning and analysis. So, with that in mind i’m somewhat confident that any such pre-planned, well thought out analysis of the situation will be well received.

Please feel free to ask any questions, any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks. [/quote]

While I don’t really know much about the proposal layout, I would definitely stress the ease for the company returning anything on warranty work for them because chances are the renters won’t be doing it, they’ll just bitch. Also on the units that you’ll be proposing to sell, calculate out the average electricity cost for the month and year, because there’s a good chance that the electric and water bill will be included in the rent. And that can earn the owner some money.

I constantly see these commercials saying that the washer’s savings over the old one will pay for the dryer in a year, if that’s the truth then the owner will probably go for a better brand, plus it’s a selling point to potential renters that they have GOOD appliances.

Outside that I don’t know much, and while its a small town, I’m sure the owner has been to school and doesn’t like to waste money, just show him how you will save him money on the immediate construction, AND in the long run, and you can probably get his business. But make sure you get the green light from your higher ups.

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If you draw it up well, then who knows what could come of this. Business is about meeting needs, taking initiative and luck. It sounds like you can reasonably cover the first two.