BMI Merchandise – Focused on Fun
Mitchel Katz, National Sales Manager, with Regional Sales Manager Nicholas Kuchie on a visit to an Andy B’s bowling-anchored fun center.
For the New Jersey-based BMI Merchandise, “the new age is now.” The company says it’s working hard to make its A-to-Z solution the go-to for operators across the industry. With nearly 40 years of experience under their belts, BMI offers a wide range of crane and merchandiser prize kits and also aims to mitigate the time and labor costs of running a successful operation.
“Something that’s a big recurring factor, regardless of your operation’s size, is time and labor,” said BMI National Sales Manager Mitchel Katz. “It’s important that you can maintain a fresh lineup and that can be tough to manage – even with an arcade of 25 games.” A smaller game room like that, he explained, can still feature 100-plus items in the redemption area.
BMI’s Arcade Merchandise Redemption System (AMRS) is the tool that’s been helping operators manage their redemption for 12 years now. Katz said the AMRS program has been steadily evolving and greatly simplifies the ordering and inventory management processes, saving business owners a considerable amount of time.
BMI’s design and installation team members create redemption counters and rooms that truly wow customers and players with the artful and fun displays of top prizes.
“Once our install team leaves, BMI is with customers from open to close every day,” he said of new clients. “We can track and manage all their sales data and provide suggested orders through our system. Every week, we send them a link to a virtual spreadsheet to show the suggested items they need based on the data.”
From there, operators can make the decisions based on this data, giving them more control over a streamlined process.
The company’s marketing director, Lisa Lotito, added, “We’re constantly reinvigorating and adding to make it more efficient for customers. What our in-house IT team has done is upgraded that platform and advanced our AMRS technology.” The latest datapoints have been available on AMRS Pro since February, she said.
“The dashboard is so easy for the customer,” Lotito continued. “One click of a button, and they can see all of what they’ve sold. It’s so advanced. It’s like a retailer website. Now they can focus on working with customers on the floor or whatever they need to do. We’re always trying to improve ourselves to help them become more efficient.”
As the self-proclaimed “largest distributor of licensed merch,” BMI has a lot more than that, too. “We’ve also increased our assortments,” Lotito explained. “We don’t just carry candy and licensed and all the typical stuff. We do exclusive partnerships with influencers and certain vendors that supply retailers.”
Some of the best products Katz is seeing as of late is “TikTok-focused merchandise, squishies and sensory items.” “We’ve also been seeing really strong results with anime,” he added. “We have a lot of customers coming to us now to create more custom designs as well.”
BMI employs innovative ideas like a recent partnership with Arcade Online and influencer Arcade Matt on a knobby ball for redemption. They have another collab with Arcade Matt planned.
A recent partnership is with Arcade Online and the influencer Arcade Matt on a knobby ball toy for redemption. Katz admitted he was a bit apprehensive, but the item was a massive success and sold out in two weeks, even selling after the fact on the secondary market on sites like eBay following the limited run. “We’re starting to look into more collaborations with influencers,” he said. (They have another with Arcade Matt coming later this spring.)
BMI continually puts improvements in place to help streamline the entire redemption process for their customers.
“It’s all about knowing our customers and knowing what they need in order to constantly evolve,” she added.
The company sees technology as a driving force in the industry and therefore sees lots of positives on the horizon.
“In the next five years, with what we’ve been seeing in terms of growth, the FEC industry is going to explode,” Katz predicted. “It’s going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.” With redemption specifically, he said there will continue to be a mixing of attractions with merchandise – citing the success of Nexus Arena and the products they have at redemption counters and stores all over. Players will be able to take a piece of the game home with them, creating a stronger link between them and the FEC.
Katz also said BMI Merchandise is expanding more internationally. The company is currently up to four distribution centers after acquiring Peek-A-Boo Toys in 2023 and also opened a new warehouse in October of last year, which helps the company ship more efficiently.
“I really think we’re in the Golden Age of the FEC industry,” Katz said. To learn more, visit www.bmimerchandise.com.
