As of July 1, LG Electronics Canada is putting its five-year old Premier Partner program to rest and launching a new plan called LG Elite.
LG Elite will try to address margin concerns by offering it off invoice and as a back end rebate. The previous plan only offered margin off invoice.
”It’s
time for a change,” said Shawn Snobelen, national sales manager, digital display and media for LG Canada, based in Mississauga, Ont. “We wanted to refresh the program and get resellers reinvesting in it.”
Snobelen added that this way the VAR will get a better overall rebate if they meet targets.
“They’ll have to do some work, but there will be reward in the end,” he said.
The target is $50,000 a month as a minimum. The target does increase and can reach more than $200,000 per month, he added.
LG Elite will also have an enhance service offering. The subsidiary will dedicate more resources to service and has brought on a full time person to handle LG Elite partner liaison.
According to Snobelen, the Premier Partner plan was limited in terms of services. With this new plan, the company wants to create more service dealers. In the past, service dealers where TV repair places who fixed monitors. LG Canada wants to expand into resellers and corporate VARs.
The LG Elite program will cover all of the company’s display line including 15-inch LCDs up to 55-inch LCD monitors, industrial LCD products and some CRTs.
“It is a good time to launch this program because we are rolling into our second half and it’s time for a refresh. The margins are tight and we want to put more money in the back end for resellers. Back end is better long term for resellers,” Snobelen said.
The program will also have a demo offer, which is 20 per cent off list price. There will also be special bid pricing for large volume deals and Snobelen said the turnaround will be within 24 hours.
LG Canada will be working with its distribution partners to roll out LG Elite to the resellers.