Long Beach, CA–Capitol Sales Company has added a merchandising manager to its merchandising team to support business growth as a national electronics distributor for residential electronic system contractors and commercial system integrators.
Ethan Laramy joins Capitol Sales from Best Buy Company, where he most recently managed development of the Connectedlife.Home system, a home automation and entertainment solution offered by BestBuyforBusiness. Laramy was responsible for vendor relations and negotiations, and bringing new features to the overall solution. His most recent category experience includes digital entertainment and home integration using Exceptional Innovation Life|ware, lighting control, and HVAC.
“We’re pleased to have Ethan join our merchandising team,” said Curt Hayes, president and CFO of Capitol Sales Company. “His strong retail background puts him in a great position to expertly manage buying for custom installation, telephone system and commercial audio products.”
The company has also expanded its technical sales and design staff to support its growing custom installation business. Lance Larson joins the Capitol Sales team with a strong sales background and 20 years of in-depth technical expertise. Larson’s skills range from designing and selling to teaching and technical support for security and fire systems, surveillance, access controls, telephone systems, data and audio/video systems.
“Lance fits the perfect profile for our sales team,” said Hayes. “He will immediately be able to provide full support of our customers’ business needs … from spec to system design to installation and troubleshooting. Our customers build personal relationships with our technical teams and view them as an extension of their own internal design teams. We’re pleased to have Lance join our team and believe our customers will agree.”
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Larson’s prior experience includes a sales assignment for Prowire Inc., where for the past four years he worked with both commercial and residential contractors. In this role, he designed systems and provided documentation to ensure compliance with fire marshals, building inspectors and UL requirements, oversaw installation of systems and provided end-user education and programming support.
In business news, Capitol Sales refreshed its e-commerce website in September and now reports that it has seen a 47-percent increase in sales volume for online orders along with a 37-percent increase in the number of on-line orders since the launch. Capitol Sales attributes the increased order levels to website changes requested by dealer partners.
“We always ask our dealers how we can improve their experience with us,” said Hayes. “We not only listened-we acted on their ideas. We continually upgrade our site to give dealers the ease and speed they need to make ordering quick and were delighted with how that reflected in our fantastic order growth.”
One significant enhancement is the search capability, which delivers results 83-percent faster than the prior site. Dealers can also view related items to the product they are buying, making it easy to order any required or optional accessories.
The revamped site makes it easier for dealers to track orders with one simple click. Also, in the advanced search results and on product detail pages, each product is clearly labeled as to whether it will ship via UPS or truck. Capitol Sales offers free UPS freight for all online orders delivered to the primary place of business, and complimentary truck freight for orders over $3,000.
Six on-demand education courses have also been launched on the refreshed website, with more to be added over time. Topics include:
* wireless lighting control,
* business practices for profitability,
* introduction to projectors and screens,
* mixed bag of product solutions,
* wireless phone system solutions, and
* introduction to IR+ New Xantech products.
Visit www.capitolsales.com.
