TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, ALLEN JONES WANTED A REFRIGERATOR FOR his garage. He found such a good deal that he sold it for a profit instead, and something clicked. As a former stock market professional, Jones recognized a larger opportunity and began buying discounted appliances from Atlanta-area showrooms and listing them on eBay. What started as an opportunistic side hustle grew into something neither Jones nor anyone around him quite anticipated.
Today, NorthPoint Appliance is a well-established presence in Alpharetta, occupying a 12,000-square-foot showroom and a 22,000 square-foot warehouse. The business carries more than 65 brands across the full spectrum of the market, serving a wide mix of homeowners, interior designers, custom builders and remodelers, making it a consistent first call for appliance needs across the Metro Atlanta area.
Jeff Watson, the company’s vice president, teamed up with Jones in 2016 and brings 31 years of industry experience to the role. He credits the company’s durability to something simple: understanding that customer relationships extend well beyond the transactions.
“Being a small family-owned business is great for the customer,” Watson says. “You get personal attention. You don’t have to go through a switchboard to talk to someone here. Personal touch means a lot to people who care about what they bought.”
When Watson came on board, the two partners moved quickly. Within a year, they expanded from a modest storefront into the current space, a signal that NorthPoint was committing to the in-person model at the same moment the rest of retail was sprinting toward e-commerce. That instinct proved right. Buying high-end appliances sight unseen is a fundamentally unfulfilling experience. Customers want to open a refrigerator door, feel the weight of a range knob and watch a steam oven cycle through a demonstration, and NorthPoint built itself around that reality.
At the showroom, customers shopping for premium brands like Sub-Zero, Wolf, and Cove; Miele; Thermador; and True Residential will find an impressive range. Still, NorthPoint is equally serious about Bosch, Whirlpool and Frigidaire for buyers with different price points.
One of the showroom’s signature features is its live kitchen, which is stocked with functional Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances that customers can use. Cooking classes are offered regularly, giving buyers a chance to get hands-on with a convection steam oven or an induction cooktop before committing to either.
Watson and his team are deliberate about what earns space in the showroom. After three decades in the industry, the filter is clear: Does the brand hold up, and does the brand stand behind its product? Sub-Zero and Wolf, for instance, backs its appliances with a two-year warranty and a service infrastructure that Watson trusts. True Residential is American made. Cove, which Sub-Zero and Wolf also owns, is tested thoroughly before it ships. Brands that don’t support their warranties don’t stay in the lineup.
The trade side of the business runs on a similar logic: Show up consistently, and the work keeps coming. Designers and builders make up a significant portion of NorthPoint’s clientele, and many of those relationships have stretched across decades. “We’ve had relationships with some builders for over 20 years,” Watson says. “If you do what you’re supposed to do, when they need it, they come back. Our builders also know we’re easy to deal with.”
Custom homebuilders often work on project timelines that stretch across months or even years, with detailed specifications and very little margin for error. Watson describes a straightforward process he has with some of his long-term clients: A builder sends over the plans, and NorthPoint plugs in the appropriate appliance package and sends it back. No drama, no delays, no surprises. NorthPoint also maintains active connections through the National Remodelers Association and the National Kitchen and Bath Association, staying visible within the trade community beyond the transactional relationships.
Staff depth is a core part of the value proposition. NorthPoint does not hire generalists. The team is built from people who already come with high-end appliance experience, and the company then invests further through manufacturer-run training programs, including travel to brand facilities for immersive education sessions. Dyllan Sells, one of the team’s senior members, has been in the industry for 16 years. That kind of accumulated expertise shows up in conversations with customers who arrive uncertain and leave informed.
Product knowledge only goes so far without someone willing to back it up. Watson is direct about where the buck stops. “I tell my customers to call me, and I’ll take care of them,” he says. “It’s better than a big-box store where someone might be selling washers and dryers one day and something else the next.”
Beyond the business, NorthPoint has built a quiet but consistent reputation in the community. One notable effort involved a collaboration with Capstone Building Group on a substantial renovation of Jesse’s House, a transitional home in the area that supports young women navigating difficult circumstances. Support for local Little League teams and other nonprofits reflects a similar instinct: a business that considers itself genuinely woven into the community it operates in, not just commercially adjacent to it.
Watson brings a long-arc perspective to the industry that shapes how he talks to customers. He started his career at Sears, spending about six years focused almost exclusively on washers and dryers. The contrast with what NorthPoint sells and represents today is hard to overstate. “I’ve seen the industry evolve over the years,” he says. “Cooking appliances, convection steam ovens, induction cooking, a lot has changed and progressed. I always tell people you can buy a $500 range or a $17,000 range, and the result is the same: There will be food on the table, and it will be good. It’s about what type of technology you want. And multimillion-dollar homes absolutely require high-end appliances that meet the quality of the rest of the house.”
That perspective informs the way NorthPoint approaches its higher-end clientele. The team doesn’t push luxury for its own sake; instead, they help customers understand what different technologies can do in a kitchen, what the tradeoffs look like in daily use, and where the investment genuinely pays off. For high-end custom homes, the right appliances are simply part of what completes the project.
The supply chain disruptions that hit the appliance industry hard in recent years put some of those customer relationships to a real test. For example, certain products took many months to produce. Watson is clear-eyed about how difficult that stretch was but also about the outcome: Customers were largely understanding, and the company came through it without losing the trust it had spent decades building. That’s the kind of goodwill Northpoint has accumulated over time.
NorthPoint recently completed a showroom remodel and is introducing Jenn-Air to its lineup for the first time, evidence that the business is still actively investing and paying attention to what the market wants. “What we want people to know is we’re here for you,” Watson says. “We have a lot of knowledge, and we enjoy taking care of everyone in our community.” *
Robin Howard is a freelance writer in Charleston. See more of her work at robinhowardwrites.com.
