This week I am in New York at the 10th Annual Convention and Expo of the National Retail Federation. Here, with several thousand others and a couple of colleagues from my newsagency software company, I am learning about retail trends, hearing the latest economic forecasts, learning plenty about retail and discovering new opportunities.
Already today I sat in on a forum – Engaging with Shoppers in a World of Fragmentation and Change – which was fascinating in learning how some retailers are embracing, pursuing, change and making their own success ahead of the wave.
Size is not a barrier to being successful in this changing environment. While there are stories of success from majors as well as independent retailers, real success comes from critical mass. This is where our channel faces a huge challenge. Even in the marketing groups there is a lack of consistency in enough business areas to challenge the ability to genuinely embrace the opportunities of change in today’s marketplace.
It is interesting to see how social media and mobile technology are being used by some very smart retailers.
The second session I attended today was a Global Retail Forum. This started with an economic assessment from Deloittes followed by an analysis of this in the context for several geographic regions. This session was particularly useful in providing perspective of the economic challenges of 2012 and the next few years. It was also useful to speak with several people about this and the context of operating in a space which is subject to significant technology driven disruption as is the case for print media related businesses … these challenges are beyond the disruption of online shopping to which all retailers are subject.
This morning is just the beginning of an excellent three and a half day event. In the agenda I see many sessions of value to newsagents.
Please forgive me but for commercial reasons I won’t be sharing here (at this stage) many of the insights.