EXCLUSIVE: Acer Australia, who is struggling to grow their share of the consumer PC market, has moved to sell direct via a Company online store. The Taiwanese Company is also set to trial Acer kiosks in shopping centres in direct competition with consumer electronics retailers according to sources.During the past 12 months Acer has witnessed a 35% slump in notebook and PC sales with the Company struggling to hold onto shelf space inside retailers.
A recent falling out with Harvey Norman and a move by Officeworks to cut back on the Acer PC range has impacted the Company, who last week saw the sudden exit of Acer product management director Nigel Gore.
Acer marketing under the management of David Sunton has now moved to develop a program whereby kiosks will be trialled in selected high traffic shopping centres.
A Company source said “We are not getting sales via retailers so the Company is looking to initiate a direct sell program which if it works could see a lift in sales and higher margins for Acer”.
In the B to B market long time Acer distributor Bluechip InfoTech has moved to sell HP product s with HP reporting an increase in sales during the past quarter.
Both IDC numbers and GFK data show that Acer sales have slipped significantly with one sales insider at Acer saying “I would not trust the IDC data. Sales are worse than what is reflected in the data supplied to IDC”.
ChannelNews asked Acer to comment but at the time of going to press Acer Australia had not responded to our email which outlined several issues we wanted to discuss with the Company.
