Pirch Launches in Manhattan With Connected Loft Managed by NY HTSA Dealer

Pirch’s three-story, 32,000-square foot SoHo space features working upscale kitchen appliances, sinks -- even shower heads -- consumers can try. It also offers cooking classes as part of the Pirch experience theme. An AVS salesman manages the Savant-controlled “connected loft” in the SoHo store, featuring an Innit software-driven smart kitchen touch-screen display, Sonance speakers, Seura TVs and Lutron lighting control. AVS will be the exclusive tech partner for the loft, a 900-square-foot space on the third-floor showing technology in a bathroom, kitchen, living space and conference room.

The SoHo location is the first Pirch showroom to feature a dedicated area for technology, the result of an effort that Barrett spearheaded. Barrett, who has his own 8,000-square-foot design center, attended a Pirch business development meeting at the appliance retailer’s Oak Brook, Illinois, showroom, he told us at the Pirch SoHo opening. “It was the most beautiful store I’d ever laid eyes on.”

Barrett saw Pirch “dream rooms,” where interior designers and architects pore over blueprints with clients, the ideal point of entry for an HTSA dealer to plant the seed for a home automation and entertainment system. When Barrett saw that the Pirch store was running on a Savant platform -- controlled by an iPad -- but had no consumer-facing technology vignettes, he saw an opening for HTSA members in Pirch markets. He left the meeting thinking, "How do I get involved?” he said.

Barrett met with Pirch executives and told them they needed an “avenue to the connected home,” because “smart appliances are coming” and consumers are going to expect connected appliances to be part of the home. Millennials “want to know how this connects with their lives,” he said. Barrett had a convincing pitch for Pirch’s business development team: His own showroom was a finalist for a small-space 2016 Innovative Showroom Award from the National Kitchen & Bath Association. Pirch Atlanta won an award for the 5,000-square-foot and larger category.

“HTSA leadership is collaborating with the Perch executive team and recommending select members become Synergy Partners sharing in win-win business development efforts in their respective markets,” said Barrett, noting the next focus for HTSA is on the next Pirch store opening in Austin. Pirch defined the relationship as “not an official partnership between Pirch and HTSA,” but said the two “share a mutual goal of bringing technology, in a functional way, to more people.”

The Synergy dealer for the Austin store hasn’t been selected. In addition to AVS and Barrett’s, HTSA Synergy Partners are Dallas Sight & Sound, Dallas, and California-based Audiovisions with stores in Los Angeles, Orange County and Palm Desert, Barrett said. On what qualifies an HTSA dealer to be a Pirch partner, Barrett said: “Complete design capability, the ability to implement and deploy a system and support it with outstanding service.” He said most HTSA dealers fit those qualifications.

Barrett tapped Karp of AVS to be the first HTSA Synergy Partner for the Pirch SoHo store. “Franklin was the right guy by far,” he said of Karp, who has been with AVS for nearly 10 years and was president of now-closed Harvey Electronics in Manhattan for 15 years before that. Barrett is a Synergy Partner for Pirch's Oak Brook store, although he doesn't manage a tech section. He is averaging two referrals a week from Pirch, he said.

The key to the relationship for HTSA is Pirch’s seven-person outside business development team, said Barrett. “We’re driving business through the luxury trades with Pirch,” he said, “and we’re bringing them as many luxury opportunities as they’re bringing us.” HTSA dealers need to be in on a new home integration project early to prewire a house. “It’s about bringing those opportunities to Pirch so they can sell appliances,” he said. “It’s a win-win business development strategy.”

Barrett picked three custom electronics vendors with a design focus: Sonance for its design-oriented in-ceiling and in-wall speakers; Seura, a maker of TV mirrors as well as waterproof and outdoor TVs; and Leon Speakers’ Media Décor series of “art lifts” that use an automated scrolling mechanism to cover a TV screen with artwork when the TV is dark. Using Savant for control was a given because Pirch already was using Savant systemwide for store automation.

At the SoHo store, Karp chose Lutron lighting and motorized shade control. The loft space has a “dream room” where interior designers meet to see options for kitchens, baths and outdoor spaces. At the same time a designer watches a presentation on luxury faucets, she can be schooled in the benefits of home automation, Barrett said, describing a scene that raises the Media Decor art screen above the TV, closes the room's shades and adjusts the lights automatically. “It’s a whole different way of selling,” Barrett said.

While Pirch sells appliances from the space -- and displays prices with the promise the retailer will meet any price a consumer finds elsewhere for limited-distribution goods such as Sub-Zero and Viking -- HTSA partners won’t list prices for the products shown in the lofts, said Barrett and Karp.

For Karp, the affiliation with the SoHo store is a natural because “it’s the kind of clientele we cater to." Pirch gets access to AVS’ architect, designer and builder connections, and it offered Karp the opportunity for VIP tours, including lunches or dinners prepared by Pirch chefs, for special clients. "There is no financial arrangement whatsoever,” between AVS and Pirch, said Karp. “They just wanted a good, reliable partner.” Karp’s hardware investment was less than $10,000 in the space, and he handled labor and programming under his budget. Vendors didn't provide all the products used in the space, he said. “I’ve made a financial contribution to the space.” he said.

On product selection, Karp said Barrett and HTSA “had some ideas” and Karp had his own, including Lutron, AVS’ top lighting and shade vendor. Savant was a natural because Pirch already used Savant so the loft space just became a separate zone in the system. Karp hired a full-time salesman for the Pirch store, an ex-Bang & Olufsen store staffer, he said.

Pirch is “heads and tails above anything I’ve seen in retail,” said Karp, whose Harvey Electronics business at one time operated a store-within-a-store in Manhattan’s ABC Carpet. Karp related a story of a client who brought along her young daughter to an architect meeting at a Pirch store, which arranged for one of the store’s chefs to bake cookies with the daughter in the interactive kitchen so that the mother could give full attention to shopping for home appliances. “They had a fully stocked kitchen," he said, "and then they gave her a basket of cookies to take home." When the Paramus, New Jersey, Pirch store lent a very expensive tub to a kitchen and bath show upstate, Pirch arranged a weekend trip for an interested client to try it out on location. “Tell me you’re not going to buy from these people?" said Karp.

AVS will upgrade technology where necessary, when Savant issues its next software update, for instance, but Karp doesn’t feel the need to swap out hardware regularly, keeping to the minimalist Pirch look. AVS has a separate Wi-Fi network, one of three in the area, including the store’s Wi-Fi and one dedicated to the Innit automated cooking software and display in the space. Karp hopes that every job arising out of the Pirch tie will have a network component, too. “We’re at the point now where we’ll actually tell a client 'no' if they’re not going to put a good-quality network in,” said Karp. “We know that the network can be the source of many, many headaches and emergency calls on weekends.” AVS has its own three-person IT department for the networks it sells. “If there’s a problem, we know it’s the service provider,” said Karp. That’s a message Karp extended to the Pirch sales staff in a presentation hoping they can pass on to customers the importance of a robust network: “So when they plug their [connected] refrigerator in, it’s going to work the way they expect it to work.”

The Savant control app lends itself to the experiential part of the Pirch approach. Customers just have to "hit the shades button on the iPhone in their hand, and the shades go up,” Karp said. Being able to reach upscale customers AVS wouldn’t otherwise reach and demonstrate that controlling shades and lights is as easy as pressing a button on a smartphone or tablet, is a “tremendous opportunity,” Karp said.

Neither AVS nor Pirch wants customers to have full rein with the control system. The demo iPad can be used only by someone who knows the code, said Karp. If the AVS salesperson is on break, a Pirch employee can use a tablet app to run a demo mode that turns on music and TV in the space. “They don’t want customers just touching the stuff,” he said. All the products used for demos are hardwired vs. battery-operated because Pirch didn’t want anything in the loft that required regular maintenance, Karp said. "If a shade doesn’t work all of a sudden, are you going to change batteries?” Keypads, meanwhile, are visible but not functional, he said.

For Pirch’s part, the retailer will “continue to incorporate connected products in new stores but the Connected Loft as it’s seen at Pirch SoHo is exclusive to the SoHo store,” a company spokesperson emailed us. “Pirch recognizes that the future of the home includes technology” and the retailer wants to “bring these elements together in a functional and experiential space, the Connected Loft,” said the retailer. For AVS’ Karp, Pirch is “what I dreamt of doing in a past life but never had the assets to do it.”