KnowledgeLINK Launches GetPlugged.com

Hoping to "forever alter the way people shop for medium to high-end home entertainment products," KnowledgeLINK has launched its e-commerce website, GetPlugged.com, which it claims will "educate and entertain consumers, and seamlessly link them with the nation's best A/V specialty retailers and custom installers." The site offers what it calls "a highly informative, fun, uniquely interactive shopping experience for the audio-video consumer."

KnowledgeLINK founder Sunil Mehrotra describes his vision of making information and commerce accessible to a huge number of consumers via the Internet. "With so many new video and audio technologies, and so vast an array of sophisticated and elaborate equipment confronting them, it's no wonder that most consumers feel intimidated before even entering a showroom—and in too many instances never do," he says.

"GetPlugged.com's mission is to offer consumers the personal service and individualized, educational support that specialty audio dealers have been delivering for decades, but from a unique, controllable environment—the consumer's home or office." GetPlugged.com is no discount, mass-market web outlet, Mehrotra insists. "It's a full-service learning site that escorts consumers through the entire discovery and buying process in a way that, instead of intimidating people, is, in fact, fun."

GetPlugged.com's approach is to ask consumers a series of questions to determine their needs, actual use conditions, budget, and ultimate goals. Visitors have the option of keeping the dialogue entirely confidential while a profile is compiled, after which several solutions are offered. GetPlugged.com claims a unique feature: consumers' questions are answered online by "some of the industry's most respected experts."

A key concept in GetPlugged's marketing plan is to build a network of affiliated retailers and custom installers. Once consumers select the products or systems optimal to their needs, they are smoothly and seamlessly linked to an affiliated retailer in their area. Dealers will participate in the online venture rather than being shut out by it. The site allows the compilation of personal, confidential "notebooks" in which to store technical information, answers to questions, proposed system recommendations, etc. Consumers can store information at leisure, leave the site, and, on their return, pick up where they left off. GetPlugged.com hopes its unique approach will affect the future of "e-tailing" well beyond the consumer-electronics sphere.

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