I am in New York at the National Retail Federation’s Retail’s Big Show. This is a conference and trade show for retailers large and small and on a scale unlike anything in Australia – close to 35,000 attendees and hundreds of technology and retail back end suppliers.
This is a truly international event with retailers and suppliers from many countries including China, India, Great Britain, Brazil, Japan, Canada and Germany to name a few. Australian attendees are few, representing large businesses. Click here for a breakdown of the 2013 demographics.
This is my third year here and even after just the first day I can tell it will be as useful, exciting and motivating as the first two I attended. This challenge is to choose sessions – from a wide variety available. Today, for me, was about retail challenges, online versus bricks and mortar, loyalty, payments and embracing the size of your business.
Parallel to the conference is the opportunity to consider one’s business from afar while soaking up insights from conference speakers and spending time looking at best-practice retail on the streets of Manhattan. In addition to specific conference take-aways, there will be practical take-aways that will lead to changes back home. (No, that’s not code.)