Beyond the Brand
When what you sell changes, what actually matters doesn’t
Change usually starts before anyone says it out loud.
A product line shifts. A strategy evolves. A partnership ends — but expectations don’t.
A retailer looks around and realizes the business may need more options, more flexibility or a simpler path forward. By the time the decision is made, the internal debate is often already over.
What comes next is harder.
Changing a product lineup isn’t just about what goes on the floor or what leaves. It’s about whether customers still trust the business when it’s over.
When the shift isn’t just about product
For Michael Piazzaroli, CEO of Mike’s Factory Direct, the decision began with a simple conversation. After years of supply chain limits, he and his sales manager kept coming back to the same idea: The business needed more resilience.
“We always said we needed to be more diversified and not have all our eggs in one basket,” Piazzaroli says.
For 12 years, his company operated in an exclusive partnership. Then came the shift. He brought on another line as a backup, what he called a “Plan B and maybe even a Plan C, just in case.” Not long after bringing on a second line, his original manufacturer ended the relationship — cutting off both the sales agreement and service support.
This wasn’t just a retailer changing what it sold; it was a retailer changing what it sold while also losing access to the manufacturer-backed service support.
Suddenly, the business had to demonstrate it could continue supporting years of prior sales.
Protecting the customer relationship
Piazzaroli did not frame the problem in terms of product. He framed it in terms of obligation.
“Our biggest priority was just maintaining our 12-year commitment to our local customers in our community,” he says. “Our first thought was that we have to take care of the clients that we’ve been servicing for over a decade and make sure that they weren’t left in the lurch.”
Some of that work was messy, expensive and, at times, made little short-term business sense.
“We found creative ways to support as many as we possibly could,” Piazzaroli says. “If it was something simple and easy, we took care of our customers, even though it probably wasn’t the profitable thing to do, but it was the right thing to do.”
Different paths, same priority
Norm Coburn, president of New England Spas, has seen lineup changes play out differently over the years — sometimes driven by performance, and other times by decisions outside his control.
In one instance, a shift in brand mix led to the end of a manufacturer relationship and raised immediate concerns about how existing customers would be supported.
What followed could have created the same kind of customer support gap Piazzaroli faced. Instead, Coburn pushed back.
When he was told the split would mean no more parts for his existing customers, his response was immediate:
“Well, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” he said. “They’re my customers, and I want to make sure that they’re cared for.”
Coburn insisted on continuing to fulfill warranty obligations and stay on as a service center.
In the end, he worked it out so his store could provide aftermarket parts and service to customers from that line long after the sales relationship ended.
The two situations played out differently.
Piazzaroli changed his lineup and lost both sales and service backing, but he still worked to care for those customers as best he could.
“The customers are the ultimate boss,” Piazzaroli says.
Coburn changed his lineup and worked to preserve service continuity, succeeding in a way that allowed the transition to happen with less customer disruption.
“The most important thing in any transition is that we get to take care of our customers,” Coburn says.
What Matters Most When the Lineup Changes
Going from decision to action
Once the decision was made, both men moved quickly from strategy to execution.
“I went to the office the next day, and I sat my sales manager down,” Piazzaroli says. “We put together a strategy for liquidating all of the inventory we had and all of our showroom displays, and from there, we had a plan forward.”
Coburn, facing less disruption, concentrated on tightening his existing floor.
“We had to get rid of what we had,” he says. “We had floor models and inventory, so it was really business as usual.”
He used incentives and price breaks to move product quickly.
Getting the team up to speed
The next challenge was internal.
This is where lineup changes stop being abstract and start hitting the sales floor. Customers ask different questions, and staff have to explain new products with confidence.
“We’ve always embraced whatever training we can get, whether it’s from the factory or independently,” Coburn says.
For his team, narrowing to a single brand had an upside.
“There was a little more depth of product knowledge that the salespeople gained as a result of having a single brand focus,” he says.
Piazzaroli took a more aggressive approach. He flew staff to factories, leaned into training opportunities and used weekly meetings to keep the team aligned.
“We didn’t hope it would work,” he says. “We made sure it did.”
Letting the customer experience do the talking
Neither retailer made a formal announcement about the change.
“We didn’t feel it was necessary or relevant,” Coburn says. “We didn’t really have to change our marketing approach.”
Instead, he focused on consistency — continuing to emphasize the store’s identity over any specific brand.
Piazzaroli took a similar approach.
“We didn’t start blasting, ‘Holy heck, here’s what happened,’ ” he says. “We told customers the truth and kind of handled them on a case-by-case basis as they came in.”
Building trust beyond the brand
In both cases, the same principle emerged: When a lineup changes, the story customers hear should not be about the manufacturer; it should be about the retailer.
“Even before [customers] purchase from us, we talk about how who you buy your hot tub from is just as important, or more than, which hot tub you end up buying,” Piazzaroli says.
Coburn sees the same dynamic play out over time. Customers return and ask a simple question: “OK, what should I buy now?”
Trust, in both cases, is tied to the retailer, not the manufacturer.
What can’t be controlled
Piazzaroli could not preserve every aspect of service continuity because restricted access to parts and warranty claims meant some customers couldn’t be supported in the same way.
“We made sure our customers were taken care of, [but] in some cases, we had to let some go,” he says.
Coburn, by contrast, maintained service continuity and even addressed practical customer issues — including electrical differences between brands — by working with a trusted electrician to reduce costs.
Measuring the outcome
Despite the disruption, neither retailer viewed the shift as a reinvention.
“We had a plan, and we put that plan in place,” Piazzaroli says.
Within six to nine months, his business had fully transitioned.
The result: “2025 was our first full year, and we were awarded Best New Dealer of the Year,” Piazzaroli says.
Coburn’s path was quieter but equally steady.
“It’s great to give customers a choice, but it’s also helpful at times to say, ‘We carry this [brand] because X, Y and Z, and that’s why you should have it, too.”
Why the relationship still matters most
Taken together, their experiences point to a clear sequence: protect existing customers first, move inventory quickly, retrain the team and reposition the business around the store’s identity — not the manufacturer.
Customers may accept a new floor, a different recommendation and even some transition turbulence.
What they will not tolerate is the feeling that the business they trusted has stopped being dependable.
“Have trust and faith in how good a business you run, regardless of what logo you represent,” Piazzaroli says.
How one retailer rebuilt her business — without a full reset
When Sue Rogers, former owner of Oregon Hot Tub, stepped into spa retail ownership, the brand was already in place. What wasn’t working was everything around it.
“The only purpose for the website was to get a lead,” Rogers says.
Instead of launching a full rebrand all at once, she focused on what would actually drive business.
“I didn’t care what it looked like at first; I just needed it to work,” she says.
From there, the rebrand happened gradually.
“I didn’t change everything overnight,” Rogers says. “We just kept improving things piece by piece.”
That incremental approach extended beyond marketing and into how the business was positioned.
“One of the biggest things we did was separate out the service side,” she says. “We made it more brand-neutral so we could work on anything.”
The shift reflected a broader realization about how customers think.
“Customers don’t care as much about the brand as we think they do,” Rogers says.
For her, the takeaway is practical.
“You don’t have to blow everything up and start over,” she says. “You just have to fix what’s not working.”
