TAMPA, FL (06.19.26) – Memphis and DOW Technologies partnered for a training session that DOW hosted on Wednesday evening, June 17th at Tampa location.The training packed the house at DOW’s location with 83 retailers on site and all interested in boosting their skills in order to drive sales forward.

Mike Barcia, DOW Florida Territory Manager, was on site with other members of the DOW Team. Barcia provided information from the very successful event along with images for this article.

“The training session was a terrific event..one of the best I’ve seen in my years in the industry. Ellis Mathis conducted a very informative session and members of the audience were engaged with what Ellis had to say covering the Memphis line. Dealers were very focused and all were excited about the opportunity to win raffle items. The Memphis raffle items included 10 Memphis Flow wireless Bluetooth speakers, Memphis DSP, and Memphis PRX-5 Channel Amp along with a Memphis tent and 2 stools to take back to winners stores” Barcia related.

 Following the training, there was a delicious buffet from The Brisket Shoppe. All dealers enjoyed brisket dinners from the buffet. There was a long line for the buffet. During the evening dealers were also able to connect with one another plus see different items that Memphis offers to help promote their brand. A live Memphis portable show display was a real attention getter.

Based on the success of the Memphis training in Tampa watch for more  trainings at other DOW locations.

For more see memphiscaraudio.com and dowtechnologies.com

STILLWATER, OK (06.19.26) – KICKER Marine Audio has announced the addition of Will Cherry as OEM Marine Sales Manager, further expanding the company’s direct engagement with boat builders and marine industry partners.

Cherry brings years of experience across the powersports and recreational audio industries, including extensive work in OEM integration and product strategy collaboration. In his new role, he will work directly with boat manufacturers, engineers, and product managers to support KICKER’s growing OEM Marine program.

The move reflects KICKER’s continued investment in direct OEM support as the company expands its presence across the marine industry.

“Will brings a strong understanding of OEM relationships and the practical realities builders face every day,” said Bart Deal, Vice President of Product Strategy & OEM for KICKER. “As our marine business continues to grow, we’re investing in the people, engineering, and support structure needed to serve builders at a higher level. Will’s experience and approach fit well with where we’re headed.”

Cherry joins a growing cross-functional OEM initiative at KICKER that brings together marine audio engineering, product development, technical support, and builder collaboration. The effort includes Phil White, who has led the development and technical advancement of KICKER Marine products for more than two decades. Developed in close collaboration with other KICKER leaders, the move is designed to strengthen long-term OEM partnerships and support future marine system integration opportunities. 

KICKER’s Marine lineup includes scalable audio solutions ranging from OEM-focused bulk offerings to the premium M-Class series, all designed around the company’s RealMarine^® philosophy — engineering products specifically for long-term marine durability, integration, and acoustic performance.

Cherry will work alongside KICKER’s marine engineering, product development, and marketing teams to strengthen builder relationships and support future OEM opportunities across freshwater, saltwater, and performance boating segments.

“KICKER has a reputation that reaches far beyond audio,” said Cherry. “The company has built trust through performance, engineering, and long-term relationships. I’m excited to help expand that presence in the marine OEM space. There’s real momentum around what KICKER is building.”

KICKER is continuing efforts to expand its marine presence through new product development, industry partnerships, increased participation in broader marine integration and engineering discussions, and now through the expansion of its direct OEM collaboration.

For more information about KICKER Marine Audio and OEM solutions, interested parties can visit https://www.kicker.com/oem_marine.

METAIRIE, LA (06.19.26) – Flashtech Lighting has appointed Aligned Sales & Marketing Group LLC as its independent sales representative for Southern California, Southern Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Hawaii.

Aligned Sales & Marketing Group LLC, led by Hazim Jainoor, will support Flashtech’s dealer and distributor growth throughout the territory as the company expands its presence in the 12-volt automotive aftermarket.

“We are excited to have Aligned Sales & Marketing Group representing Flashtech Lighting in this important territory,” said Stephen Gordon, CEO of Flashtech Lighting. “Hazim brings strong relationships, market knowledge, and a clear understanding of the dealer network we want to reach. This partnership gives Flashtech the ability to support customers more effectively as we continue to grow.”

Flashtech Lighting offers a broad range of automotive lighting products, including LED headlight bulbs, halo headlight kits, off-road lighting, rock lights, underbody lighting, controllers, and related 12-volt lighting accessories.

A major focus of the partnership will be Flashtech’s new F5 Modular LED Headlight Platform. The F5 platform was developed to help dealers and installers simplify inventory while covering many of the most common halogen-replacement applications.

The F5A package covers H7, H11, 9005, and 9006 applications, while the F5B package covers H13 and 9007 applications. Together, the two core SKUs allow dealers to cover a wide range of popular applications without carrying a large number of individual bulb part numbers.

“The F5 platform is designed for real-world dealers and installers,” Gordon said. “It helps reduce SKU complexity, makes stocking easier, and gives shops a clean way to offer a high-demand LED headlight upgrade.”

Flashtech Lighting will support Aligned Sales & Marketing Group with product samples, digital and printed sales materials, F5 literature, online product resources, and dealer onboarding support.

“We are honored to represent Flashtech Lighting and look forward to building the brand throughout our territory,” said Hazim Jainoor of Aligned Sales & Marketing Group. “The F5 platform gives dealers a practical and efficient way to approach LED headlight sales, and we believe it will be a strong fit for the customers we serve.”

For more information about Flashtech Lighting, visit: https://www.flashtechlighting.com.

TOLEDO, OH (06.18.26) – Early Wednesday morning, June 10th, Alex Restrepo and the House of Sound team of 4 rolled out of Houston on the way to Toledo, OH to extend the company’s Slingshot Experiences. House of Sound has been driving Slingshot Experiences in Houston for several years and recently have taken their activities on the road…. most recently in Maggie‘s Valley North Carolina. Team members with Alex were Edwin Watson, Eber Flores and Ivan Carmona.

This stop was at the Slang Gang Reload Mud Classic that ran June 11th through the 14th. Reflecting from behind the wheel on the 1250 mile 2-Day drive Alex related “We packed the trailer with tents, inventory and Slingshot specific installation products for installations on site. Once we got there we everything set up. Thursday afternoon we were ready to make Slingshots shine and sound great. Slingshot enthusiast started to arrive, discussed the upgrades that they would like to do to their Slingshots with 12volt gear and custom lighting on their Slingshots”.

On Friday and on Saturday Slingshot enthusiast continued to check out activities and have the House of Sound crew make installations on their Slingshots. Friday night here was an on stage concert that all enjoyed. Installations were completed on Sunday the 14th. The crew packed the trailer and Monday started the 1250 miles back to Houston. All told,up and back, the House of Sound crew spent over 50 hours on the highway.

“This was the first year for the event in Toledo and most of the attendees were from the community in the area. We did 8 or 9 installations each day but next year will more people from surrounding states it should be better for onsite installations.

More and more Slingshot enthusiasts are upgrading their rides with aftermarket uprades and we are looking for a great year as we drive business with Slingshot experiences” Restrepo concluded.

For more see houseofsoundtx.com.

SHREVEPORT, LA (06.18.26) – In-store traffic is vitally important for the success of 12volt brick and mortar retailers. Across the US the reports indicate all consumer in-store traffic is down. Online sales, along with strained family budgets, are the main contributing factors.

For 12volt retailers another contributing factor is the lack of consumer awareness for the wide range of automotive upgrade products available today. 12volt is not only car audio. The wide range of in-vehicle connectivity, security and safety products, along with window tint, paint protection and graphics expand the range of products available from 12volt retailers.

Advertising on television and radio is expensive. Print advertising has basically disappeared. Online visibility, along with social media, are terrific sources for 12volt retailers….committing to making engaging daily posts is critical.

Look Our Way ‘Air Dancers’ present an emerging opportunity for curbside visibility in front of 12volt retail locations. Street traffic is a constant for all brick and mortar retailers. An Air Dancer easily plugs into AC and can be placed out front of a store. The base contains a fan that blows verically to fill and make the fabric tube…..DANCE. The fabric tube disconnects from the base with Velcro. The Air Dancer can be customized and is available in various colors with heights to 20’. At the end of the day the Air Dancer is easy to take down and put inside the store for the next day.

There are also possibilities for factory for vehicles on the road at events and reps on the road.

See www.lookourway.com to see how inexpensive an Air Dancer option can be for your store.

METAIRIE, LA (06.18.26) – Flashtech Lighting has appointed Driven Marketing LLC as its independent sales representative
for Northern/Central California and Northern Nevada.

Driven Marketing, led by Pete Bobsin and Greg Douglas, will support Flashtech’s dealer and distributor growth
throughout Northern/Central California and Northern Nevada.

“We are excited to have Driven Marketing representing Flashtech Lighting in this important region,” said Stephen
Gordon, CEO of Flashtech Lighting. “Pete and Greg bring strong relationships, experience, and a deep understanding
of the 12-volt dealer network. Their support will help us expand Flashtech’s presence with the right dealers and
installers throughout Northern/Central California and Northern Nevada.”

Flashtech Lighting offers a broad range of 12-volt automotive lighting products, including LED headlight bulbs, halo
headlight kits, off-road lighting, rock lights, underbody lighting, controllers, and related lighting accessories.
A major focus of the partnership will be Flashtech’s new F5 Modular LED Headlight Platform. The F5 platform was
developed to help dealers and installers simplify inventory while covering many of the most common halogenreplacement
applications.

The F5A package covers H7, H11, 9005, and 9006 applications, while the F5B package covers H13 and 9007
applications. Together, the two core SKUs allow dealers to cover a wide range of popular applications without carrying a
large number of individual bulb part numbers.

“The F5 platform is designed around inventory simplification,” Gordon added. “It gives dealers a clean way to stock and
sell LED headlight upgrades without overcomplicating their bulb inventory. We believe it is a strong fit for 12-volt shops,
truck accessory dealers, restyling shops, and installers that want a practical lighting line with strong coverage.”
Flashtech Lighting will support Driven Marketing with product samples, digital and printed sales materials, F5 literature,
online product resources, and dealer onboarding support.

“We are looking forward to representing Flashtech Lighting and helping introduce the F5 platform to dealers throughout
our territory,” said Pete Bobsin and Greg Douglas of Driven Marketing. “The F5 is a practical, dealer-focused program
that makes sense for shops looking to add or simplify LED headlight bulb sales.”

For more information about Flashtech Lighting, visit: https://www.flashtechlighting.com.

BUTLER, PA (06.16.26) – The 15h Annual Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival took place June 12th thru 14th in historic downtown Butler PA and Campgrounds. Over 15,000 Jeepers attended the weekend and enjoyed off-road trails, obstacle courses and a huge vendor area filled with companies that offered aftermarket products for Jeep owners and enthusiasts. The downtown Butler Jeep Invasion witnessed over 1000 Jeeps parked along main street and parking areas in the town of approximately 13,000 located 35 miles north of Pittsburgh. Butler was named the 7th Best Small Town in America in a Smithsonian Magazine in 2012.

Team Nutz is a proactive 12volt retailer located in Pittsburgh and returned to the Bantam Jeep Festival for the 2026 run. Ed Nuttall related, “The Bantam Jeep Festival draws thousands of Jeepers, enthusiasts and their rides. That crowd is noted for adding aftermarket products to their rides. We do a lot of Jeep upgrades at the store, and being so close to our store in Pittsburgh, it makes perfect sense for our brand to be on site. We had a great crew on site with vendor support, a large booth area with multiple tents plus several demo vehicles. Sales this year were not strong bit our team made contact with so many enthusiast and promising prospects.

Team Nutz crew on site included Ed and Tina Nuttall along with Ryan Davis, Braxton Davis, Josh Nuttall and Mike Gosnik. OnFriday Vanessa and Suzette came out on Friday to help pass out Team Nutz yellow ducks.”

Team Nutz also spotlighted the company’s DIYCustoms.store in addition to driving on site sales and at the retail store in Pittsburgh. A free DIYCustoms.store offer was under the tent for attendees that liked, followed and tagged DIYCustoms.store on social media. There were 1000 T shirts on site and over 300 attendees took one home. Team Nutz Nutz also participated on a vendor bingo card so Jeepers could come by the booth and have the card stamped for a chance to win a $200 gift card.

Continuing “We made 5000 custom yrllow rubber ducks for the event and gave out almost 4000. Downtown we went down along parked Jeeps and put ducks on hoods. The rubber ducks had the Team Nutz logo for all to see and remember. We also passed out 1000 stickers and over 200 lanyards” Nuttall related.

Concluding, Nuttall stated, “This was our 11th time to exhibit at the Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival. Based on our success at this year’s event expect to see us at the 2027 event and beyond.

Visit www.teamnutztechnology.com for more.

SHREVEPORT, LA (06.16.26) – From the 12volt Central Studios, we are JAMMIN’ N JUNE to showcase positives across the
12volt industry. Below spotlight exciting major events that happened this weekend. In the marketplace today it’s so important to showcase industry members doing positives to engage consumers, and enthusiasts, to drive business across the 12volt industry. Retailers need to play the in-store experience and professional installation cards in their deck.

We lead-off in this JAMMIN’ N JUNE article with SLAMOLOGY 2026 that moved to a new venue, The Edgewater Sports Park in Cleves, OH outside of Cincinnati. This exciting new venue was Livin’Loud as an epic Car Show and music event that experienced festival fans loved which happened June 13 and 14th. Kicker was a SLAMOLOGY event partner. We started covering KICKER team members as they were making their way to the event.

Next up was Team Nutz, a very proactive 12volt retailer in Pittsburgh with Ed Nuttall and the Team at the Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival in Butler PA, which is only 30 miles from their store. With a decked JEEP, multiple tents and staff members Team Nuts connected with thousands of consumers at the event and had many promotions to drive consumers into their store in the coming days.

Houston-based House of Sound has been driving strong business with Slingshot experiences for a number of years. This year they’re traveling to Slingshot events across the country. This weekend they were site in Toledo Ohio for their fourth of these events this year as they continued drive slingshot business for their store across the country.

In today’s online an AI driven world it’s more important than ever the members of the 12volt industry to utilize tools available to connect with customers. Manufacturers need to connect with reps and retailers. Distributors need to connect with dealers and 12volt dealers need to connect with consumers to drive business.

Several years ago the 12volt Central Studios staff members created the 12volt STP tool. Today everyone has a smart phone in their pocket that they pick up 200 times a day. The 12volt STP Tool makes you so easy to connect by simply snapping an image, texting it to 318-469-2526 with a few words, and Presto that message can be delivered across the industry. The 12volt STP Tool is a perfect companion for JAMMIN’ N JUNE!

From the 12volt Central Studios staff will continue to showcase positives across the 12volt industry. Let’s all keepJAMMIN’ N JUNE.

Stay tuned for more from the 12volt Central Studios.

KUNKLETOWN, PA (06.17.26) – 1sixty8 media, inc. announced the upcoming public launch of 1sixty8 Manifold, a unified business operations platform built to replace the tangle of disconnected software that retail and service businesses rely on every day. 1sixty8 Manifold becomes available to the public on July 1, 2026, and is currently in an invite-only beta, with a select group of retailers coming aboard as founding testers.

The platform comes from an unusual place: not a software company, but the sales floor. Founder Mitch Schaffer started Mobile Edge, an award-winning mobile electronics retail store in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, in 1994, and ran it successfully for 29 years before selling the business in June 2023.

“For most of those years I used a well-known, industry-specific point-of-sale system,” said Schaffer. “It was great early on. But as the industry and the technology evolved, I found myself cobbling together more and more disjointed software just to do the things my business needed. 1sixty8 Manifold came out of that frustration.”

That frustration was specific. What began as a search for a quality vehicle check-in solution grew into a hunt for a unified inbox for every inbound and outbound customer conversation, then reputation management, then a way to manage his team. None of those tools talked to one another. The result was constant manual data entry, room for human error, and a tremendous amount of wasted time and energy.

1sixty8 Manifold is built to erase that tax. The platform unifies most aspects of shop management and customer communications in one place where everything talks to one another. Without getting into the technical details, the payoff is simple: more internal efficiency and accuracy, fewer things slipping through the cracks, and countless hours saved every single month.

“1sixty8 Manifold leverages modern technology to create the platform today’s retailers and businesses actually require,” Schaffer said.

While 1sixty8 Manifold has its roots in the automotive aftermarket, the platform is designed to work for nearly any consumer-facing business. Whether it is a bicycle shop, a plumber, or a bookstore, 1sixty8 Manifold streamlines the operations behind the counter.

The First 50

Businesses that join as one of the first 50 subscribers receive founding-customer pricing: 50 percent off for the first six months, and 20 percent off for life.

Interested retailers can request a demo by visiting ManifoldOS.co and completing the form at the bottom of the page.

Visit 1sixty8.com for more.

SHREVEPORT, LA (06.15.26) – From the 12volt Central Studios, we are JAMMIN’ N JUNE to showcase positives across the
12volt industry. Below spotlight exciting major events that happened this weekend. In the marketplace today it’s so important to showcase industry members doing positives to engage consumers, and enthusiasts, to drive business across the 12volt industry. Retailers need to play the in-store experience and professional installation cards in their deck.

We lead-off in this JAMMIN’ N JUNE article with SLAMOLOGY 2026 that moved to a new venue, The Edgewater Sports Park in Cleves, OH outside of Cincinnati. This exciting new venue was Livin’Loud as an epic Car Show and music event that experienced festival fans loved which happened June 13 and 14th. Kicker was a SLAMOLOGY event partner. We started covering KICKER team members as they were making their way to the event.

Next up was Team Nutz, a very proactive 12volt retailer in Pittsburgh with Ed Nuttall and the Team at the Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival in Butler PA, which is only 30 miles from their store. With a decked JEEP, multiple tents and staff members Team Nuts connected with thousands of consumers at the event and had many promotions to drive consumers into their store in the coming days.

Houston-based House of Sound has been driving strong business with Slingshot experiences for a number of years. This year they’re traveling to Slingshot events across the country. This weekend they were site in Toledo Ohio for their fourth of these events this year as they continued drive slingshot business for their store across the country.

In today’s online an AI driven world it’s more important than ever the members of the 12volt industry to utilize tools available to connect with customers. Manufacturers need to connect with reps and retailers. Distributors need to connect with dealers and 12volt dealers need to connect with consumers to drive business.

Several years ago the 12volt Central Studios staff members created the 12volt STP tool. Today everyone has a smart phone in their pocket that they pick up 200 times a day. The 12volt STP Tool makes you so easy to connect by simply snapping an image, texting it to 318-469-2526 with a few words, and Presto that message can be delivered across the industry. The 12volt STP Tool is a perfect companion for JAMMIN’ N JUNE!

From the 12volt Central Studios staff will continue to showcase positives across the 12volt industry. Let’s all keepJAMMIN’ N JUNE.

Stay tuned for more from the 12volt Central Studios.