DMI Appliance Group Executive Director & CEO Alan Joskowicz invited us into their Hamilton Township, New Jersey, headquarters and brand new 800,000-square-foot warehouse for a tour and chat about business. We look into the path that DMI has been on, what trends the organization is tracking, and how members of both NMG and DMI can benefit from the groups’ partnership.
Rob Stott: All right, we are back on The Independent Thinking Podcast. I ended last season on the road. Now I get to start the new season of podcasts on the road. This is pretty cool. Mr. Alan Joskowicz, executive director of DMI. A little jaunt, I had to cross the Delaware to get here. A little George Washington-esque journey. The other direction, though. I think he was coming to Philly when he was crossing the Delaware if I remember right.
Alan Joskowicz: I think so.
Rob Stott: I had to go the other way. But no, I appreciate you having me out here. Hamilton Township, is that right?
Alan Joskowicz: Yeah, Hamilton Township, New Jersey.
Rob Stott: Executive director, like I said, of DMI. Appreciate you having me in your office and diving into it with us today.
Alan Joskowicz: No, thanks for coming.
Rob Stott: Yeah. For those not familiar, just set us up. What is DMI?
Alan Joskowicz: DMI is an appliance cooperative.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: We’re made up of over 80 members. We are here to serve our members. Essentially, back in the ’50s, seven appliance stores that were working independently realized they needed to join forces when it came to warehousing, to buying power, and they created DMI.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: We’ve been around almost 70 years now.
Rob Stott: Okay. For those familiar with the history of Nationwide, that should sound kind of familiar. It was seven appliance dealers that came together in the ’70s to do something similar. Appliance and CE, obviously broader scope of categories within Nationwide Marketing Group, but recently partnered up with Nationwide as well. Talk about that and the genesis for it, and what gets you excited about the opportunities of working together with Nationwide.
Alan Joskowicz: Yeah. We were actually a member of Nationwide years ago. You try new things, but we realized a couple years ago that it would be a good idea that we come back to Nationwide. We were very happy with the services there, we met with the leadership there. We love all the opportunities that our members have by having access to everything that Nationwide provides.
Rob Stott: No, that’s incredible. I want to dive into you a little bit, your background. Tell us a little bit about your career history and path to being an executive director here at DMI.
Alan Joskowicz: Actually, I went to school for business and technology. Coming out of school, I actually started on the tech side of it.
Rob Stott: Okay.
Alan Joskowicz: I was working at IBM. Had a couple of jobs over the years, trying to see where I fit best. Most recently before I came here, I was working at the Federal Reserve. Then found out there was an opening here to run the IT department. I said, “Okay, that sounds pretty exciting.” Ton of history with the company. I used to help when I was younger at the shows.
Rob Stott: Okay.
Alan Joskowicz: I already knew about DMI.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: I knew how it was set up. But this was exciting to have the opportunity to actually come work for the company. Had an interview the the president at the time, Vinnie Capuano.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: Who was the president, a great guy. He liked me, he gave me the job and the opportunity. Just saw so much growth possibilities with what we could do. Started on the tech side, of course. Completely virtualized our systems here. Looked for ways that we can enhance the way that we provide services to our members.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: But then I had to learn about the business to do that.
Rob Stott: Right, right.
Alan Joskowicz: Our treasurer at the time caught wind of everything I was doing, we met, and they promoted me to director of operations. Started to task me to come up with better processes for other departments, start to build up the company. When I joined, DMI was basically accounting. We had our warehouse that was running great, and inside the offices we had our accounting departments. But there was no real IT team.
Rob Stott: Right.
Alan Joskowicz: We didn’t have an HR department, marketing. Started to build all that up.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: Then when the current executive director at the time, who was George, he decided he was retiring in 2022. I was very pleased to hear that the board was selecting me to become the executive director. That was very exciting.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: Been through a lot of growth with the company.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: We were in Brooklyn when I first started.
Rob Stott: Right.
Alan Joskowicz: We moved to New Jersey back in 2014. Then most recently, last year early in the year, we moved again. For the very first time ever, our office and warehouse was split in two locations.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: Scared the heck out of everybody.
Rob Stott: It’s the sense I got. But I also get the sense that I will dive into it a little bit in a little bit, but that it’s working out really well.
Before we get to that though, your time here and advancing through those roles, and seeing the evolution of the company, what stands out to you or what have you learned along the way as you’ve advanced here?
Alan Joskowicz: I’ve learned a lot about the appliance industry and how unique it is. I worked in big pharma, I worked at Federal Reserve like I mentioned. There’s a standard a lot of these companies, the way things operate. Coming into the appliance industry, it’s very different.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: Learning just what’s important to our members, what they are expecting out of us, it’s not exactly what you assume when you come and join a company like this. I learned just how unique this industry. It’s also very interesting.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: But it’s not like anything else.
Rob Stott: Right, right. Trends-wise, obviously you get a unique view of the appliance space. Is there anything from a trends perspective in appliances that you gravitate towards or that you’re noticing?
Alan Joskowicz: It’s interesting. I feel like the trends change. We go up and down between whether consumers are going for just doing upgrades, high end product, or if it’s distress. A lot of times, you’ll hear people scream, “Okay, distress is the biggest part of business.” At one point it was 70% last year.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: But all of a sudden, it changed again. During COVID, everything changed.
Rob Stott: Right.
Alan Joskowicz: I mean, people were coming in stores looking for an appliance. They didn’t care what brand it was, they didn’t care. They just wanted the piece. It was really interesting to watch that.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: What I learned is trends change.
Rob Stott: Yeah. You guys have a unique perspective on it too, because as a co-op, you got things coming in and out of the warehouse that you manage so you get to see what the consumers’ doing through the eyes of your members and things like that as well.
Alan Joskowicz: Absolutely. It’s interesting to see. Everybody’s different. I have members that spawn from Brooklyn to North Jersey, South Jersey, even down in Delaware. Every member’s different. Every member has different needs, the location they’re in, what those consumers are looking for.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: It is very interesting to see how different, from store-to-store, what those requirements are and the product that they need to bring in from our warehouse.
Rob Stott: Yeah. To that warehouse, we mention a new … 80,000, is that right, square feet? Bigger? 800,000? It started with an eight. I know I was probably going to be off with that 80. 800, that is massive.
Alan Joskowicz: It is.
Rob Stott: But that’s awesome. That opened in March, May this year?
Alan Joskowicz: We started moving early in 2024.
Rob Stott: Okay.
Alan Joskowicz: I want to say around March is when we were fully inside.
Rob Stott: Gotcha.
Alan Joskowicz: It’s a little cloudy because we were still doing cleanup between the two warehouses through April. But yeah, it was a very exciting opportunity. First time we ever had cross-docking.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: Which definitely helps speed up processes. We actually took over 500,000 of the 800,000.
Rob Stott: Wow.
Alan Joskowicz: We’re subleasing the other side of that building.
Rob Stott: Okay.
Alan Joskowicz: But the opportunity to take a brand new building in a great location.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: They had a tax pilot set up there. It just made sense. It made sense for our members.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: It’s been really exciting having such a great facility.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: There are no restrictions. We have 40-foot-high clear ceiling. We’re able to operate the business the right way.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: We don’t have to touch merchandise multiple times to move things around. You can truly store the appliances properly and be able to plan for the future as well.
Rob Stott: Yeah. A bigger space as well, I have to imagine, so you’re able to store.
Alan Joskowicz: Absolutely.
Rob Stott: I don’t want to say never in inventory challenges, but however-
Alan Joskowicz: Not in inventory. That’s a different story.
Rob Stott: … knock on every piece of wood around everywhere. But a unique opportunity, obviously as well, for the members to have that larger space, in addition to streamlining things, and to your point of less touchpoints, to have more on-hand and know that they can rely on what you guys are doing.
Alan Joskowicz: Absolutely.
Rob Stott: Your technology background, I want to tap into it. At that warehouse, any technological innovations that you guys are messing with over there or testing with?
Alan Joskowicz: Yeah. Actually, our entire system, back in 2014, we decided we were going to completely rebuild our internal systems.
Rob Stott: Okay.
Alan Joskowicz: We were running off of a Lawson system, an off-the-shelf, one size fits all. It worked.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: But we’re far from one size fits all. What we needed, a lot of the companies I met with just couldn’t do. Instead, we decided, “We’re going to build this from scratch.” Our backbone is something called FileMaker. We brought a company in to build the system from the ground up, exactly what we need.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: Whether it’s the programming we have to create, the way that we create our models in the system, and the way that we lay out our warehouse and run the system to find the merchandise for our guys who have to pick the merchandise.
The technology to help improve the way that you can put away and pull merchandise and do it more efficiently has been huge.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: The fact that we have our in-house programmers who are creating the system exactly the way that we need to use it. Tech is a huge part of the company.
Rob Stott: Yeah. It’s not relying on third parties that think they can understand your business, as opposed to you, who are in it day-to-day.
Alan Joskowicz: Correct.
Rob Stott: That’s awesome. The space here now. We’re about 10 minutes I think, from where your warehouse is, is that right?
Alan Joskowicz: About 10, 15 minutes, yeah.
Rob Stott: I know you mentioned it, the first time your split from the warehouse. There was nerves, as you mentioned, but you guys have grown into it. Talk about this space and having this office as well.
Alan Joskowicz: We were looking at building out the office and the warehouse like we always did.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: Talking to our president at the time, Andrew, was saying, “Why don’t we buy an office? We keep building these offices out in these warehouses, and then you move eventually because the lease expires.”
Rob Stott: Right.
Alan Joskowicz: Find a better facility. But the money you put into building that office, it doesn’t really go anywhere. It stays at that building, they benefit, but we don’t.
We took a look. I really couldn’t find anything. The market was not great. Even though office spaces should have been cheap-
Rob Stott: During COVID, right?
Alan Joskowicz: Right. I couldn’t find anything.
Rob Stott: It’s crazy.
Alan Joskowicz: I went back to him and said, “I can’t really find anything.” He said, “Try again.”
Rob Stott: Okay.
Alan Joskowicz: All right, fine. Round two. I looked at some pretty interesting buildings. Then out of nowhere, we were really getting ready to commit to a building out in Princeton Junction that would have been a complete renovation.
Rob Stott: Wow.
Alan Joskowicz: It would have taken months to get in order. I get a phone call from the broker and says, “Hey, we got a spot right in Hamilton Township. It’s a little smaller than what you’re looking for, but we think it’s going to fit what you need.” Came and saw this building, looked around and said, “This will work.” Very, very little bit of renovation to get this building up and running. Now we have a space that we own as a company.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: If we need to move our warehouse again, I don’t have to build out the office. I don’t have to put the expense of moving my server room, my equipment.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: Everything that comes with that. It’s a huge cost savings to company longterm. And also, instead of putting money into a build out that really leaves me with nothing, I put money into what’s now an asset.
Rob Stott: Right.
Alan Joskowicz: Huge on the financial aspect.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: But also, it helps to get talent.
Rob Stott: Yeah, absolutely.
Alan Joskowicz: This has really helped us get some of the best of the best that we can bring into the office to run accounting, to run our marketing, and so on and so forth.
Rob Stott: Yeah. Is there truly a lot of back-and-forth between office and warehouse at the end of the day?
Alan Joskowicz: There is, but we’re able to do it mostly via technology.
Rob Stott: Right.
Alan Joskowicz: Whether it’s phone, email. We split the load because there’s paperwork.
Rob Stott: Sure.
Alan Joskowicz: Unfortunately, we’re not fully paperless yet.
Rob Stott: Right.
Alan Joskowicz: We share that responsibility with folks at the warehouse bringing things over to us and we go to visit them. We’re pretty still connected in a good way.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: People were very worried it was going to put a rift in the way that we communicate.
Rob Stott: Right.
Alan Joskowicz: I think that once we got past that initial few weeks, it’s gone pretty smoothly.
Rob Stott: I want to transition a little bit and talk about the connection with Nationwide. We talked about why you’re excited about the partnership and what it brings. For your members, for them being connected to Nationwide and having access to certain services and things like that, what are some of those big opportunities that you would tell them about upfront?
Alan Joskowicz: Yeah. A lot of our stores, they don’t have a big team. They don’t have a big staff. You’re talking about some of these stores have maybe five, six people. They’re focus is on selling product. But how do they get the data to know what they should be selling? What is their marketplace calling for? That’s something that Nationwide provides. You guys are doing all that work and getting it together, and it really helps our members to floor plan better.
Rob Stott: Right.
Alan Joskowicz: They wouldn’t have access to that otherwise. They wouldn’t have the wherewithal to get that type of information. That’s huge. Marketing support is big.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: Again, something that you guys have done a great job working on and our members can benefit from that.
Rob Stott: Right.
Alan Joskowicz: Instead of paying a lot of money and having in-house marketers. Consumer financing is a big part of our members’ business. How do you get the appliance in a consumer’s home today?
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: Unfortunately, not everyone can walk in and just drop $1000 on a new fridge. But with consumer financing, they can get what they want and it can be affordable.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: You can’t do that without the backing of a company like Nationwide. All of that makes our members so much more powerful.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: For me, the overall thing is it makes our members stronger being part of Nationwide.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: It’s just great.
Rob Stott: I want to go back to that point on data because hearing you talk about it, not that our members need to be constantly beat over the head with it. But I also feel like it’s one of those things that, if they’re not hearing about it, they need to hear about it. They should be hearing about it because what you’re referring to is our Prime Metrics platform.
Alan Joskowicz: Correct.
Rob Stott: For Nationwide members watching or listening, that’s the data platform of Nationwide, is leveraging the, for those that opt in to it, free program as a member. Obviously, for your members as well, free to access. Opting in to that platform allows you to get access to tools like the Assortment Rash-Art, as its shorthand referred to. But the Assortment Rationalization Tool, which is one of my favorite to talk about. You think about buyers from years past and having to rely on their gut and what they think is moving in the market, or with down to their zip code, the access to zip code data.
Alan Joskowicz: Priceless information.
Rob Stott: Yeah, exactly. To make sure you have the most efficient assortment, in the name, the most efficient assortment on your floor. It’s taking all of that guesswork out which is a huge benefit.
You talk about all the efficiencies of having a space like this and what you guys are doing. That’s exactly what it’s about, which that’s awesome. I didn’t want to gloss over it or have you gloss over it.
Alan Joskowicz: Shared resources.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: You’re pulling it together, working as a team.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: And you’re getting data from all of these different independent appliance stores.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: Because that’s what it’s about, the independent retailers. We’re working together to do more for our consumers, something the big boxes are not doing. We’re working as a team to provide best services to the consumer.
Rob Stott: Yeah. That best practice sharing and idea sharing, just on a very formal basis with data.
Alan Joskowicz: Right.
Rob Stott: It’s just in a different format. We always talk about that as being one of the biggest benefits of being a part of a group is you’ve got peers coast-to-coast that you can access. With DMI, tri-state area?
Alan Joskowicz: Yes. Correct.
Rob Stott: PA, Jersey, Delaware?
Alan Joskowicz: Jersey, New York-
Rob Stott: New York?
Alan Joskowicz: Connecticut, Delaware.
Rob Stott: Gotcha. This area. Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: We’re jocked for position for, as new members are coming into the marketplace. It’s a great industry to be part of. Where we’re located, right off the Turnpike, it really opens up opportunity for members-
Rob Stott: Exactly.
Alan Joskowicz: … in the entire tri-state area to tap into our resources.
Rob Stott: Exactly. It’s all about having the collective power of the group and leveraging that. That’s good stuff. I enjoyed getting to pop over here and chat with you, Alan. I look forward to seeing this continue to grow, man. It’s awesome. To get an Eagles sign behind us in the middle, we had to. We’ll close with that. Go Birds, for sure. Are you from Philly?
Alan Joskowicz: I’m not, actually.
Rob Stott: No? Okay.
Alan Joskowicz: I’m actually from New York.
Rob Stott: Okay. Oh, whoa.
Alan Joskowicz: Lived in Jersey most my life.
Rob Stott: What’s going on here?
Alan Joskowicz: Huge Eagles fan-
Rob Stott: That’s awesome.
Alan Joskowicz: Since I’ve been in high school. Yeah. No, listen. It’s been a great year, I’m excited for them.
Rob Stott: No, that’s awesome.
Alan Joskowicz: Hopefully they do well.
Rob Stott: Absolutely. Well, we appreciate it. Look forward to continuing this tour and like I said, just watching this partnership grow. We appreciate it.
Alan Joskowicz: Yeah, absolutely. This is a very exciting time for us, working with Nationwide. We have a new program with Nationwide, the Buy Program, where Nationwide members can actually join as a DMI member to bring in brands that they don’t have access to currently.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Alan Joskowicz: And utilize our large variety of brands that we already have in our warehouse. That partnership is enormous for us. We’re really excited about that. We’re looking forward to growing with Nationwide.
Rob Stott: Absolutely. A lot of good things ahead, so we look forward to it as well.
Alan Joskowicz: Likewise. Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you doing this.
Rob Stott: Absolutely. Anytime.
