California Apparel News

Though attendance was down, the National Retail Federation’s “Big Show,” held Jan. 11–14 in New York, provided retailers with plenty of products and knowledge to help weather the current economic storm.

The show, held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, featured the latest in retail technology solutions as well as a slate of educational panels and exhibits.

Attendance for the show was estimated at 17,000, down from 18,500, said NRF spokesperson Kathy Grannis. Visitors, including Janet Suleski, research director for Boston-based AMR Research, said there was valuable knowledge to be gained at the show.

“From my perspective, the people at the show had an air of determination—a kind of, ’We are going to keep forging ahead, and we are going to get through this’ spirit,” Suleski said. “I think that the show was rich with information about technologies and strategies that can help retailers and apparel companies save money and make money, and people were very focused on solving some very specific problems. With budgets tightening going into 2009 fiscal years, companies will continue to be very focused in the choices they make about technology and the extent to which they can absorb business change.”

Jeff Ketner of Austin, Tex.–based Ketner/Barnes Inc., which provides consultancy and publicity services to technology and retail-service companies, said the show was more upbeat than he was anticipating.

“Attendance was definitely down, but I thought there was a higher level of senior executives in attendance this time,” he said. “The overall consensus is that 2008 was a rough year and 2009 is going to offer challenges, but everyone wants to get down with them and proceed.”

Retailers gathered plenty of ideas, many through NRF’s Future Store, which had a “green” focus this outing. The Future Store features a prototype store outfitted with eco-friendly and energy-efficient tools. The minute they walked in, visitors were greeted with the aromas of a fresh forest provided by ScentAir Technologies. Energy-efficient LED lighting illuminated the floor space. A grocery area of the store was outfitted with smart scales by Bizerba, which not only weighed vegetables but displayed their nutritional value and even carbon footprints.

The store’s walls were covered with Omnova’s wall coverings, which employ digital technology to display graphics, images and illustrations. Upon checkout, visitors received paperless coupons from Ecrio. Intel supplied an energy-efficient POS system, and Novar supplied software that measured several areas of efficiency.

The neighboring “customer experience center” was also part of the exhibit and featured technologies aimed at capturing the interests of shoppers through technology. CRI provided gaming stations, allowing visitors to create and build their own avatars and compete with others to win merchandise. Cactus Commerce presented Soundshift, an online music store that enables visitors to discover new talent and discuss their music findings through the store’s social community.

Users can also purchase music online and pick up items through QR codes printed from mobile devices at the point of sale. Using their iPhones, the customers can view product details, synchronize their wish lists, and obtain coupons and receipts electronically. Other features of the area were enhanced with Panphonics Sound Showers, a directional sound system, and Key Ring Thing, which combines loyalty-card programs into one wallet card.

Enhancing retail spaces with such tools will become important, said representatives of the Verde Group and the Wharton School, which released a study during one of the executive panels at NRF. To no one’s surprise, malls are boring shoppers. The survey showed that nearly 30 percent of shoppers thought there was too much sameness at stores and too few restaurants. The survey did find that mall shoppers are loyal, as nine out of 10 interviewed said they drive up to 25 miles and spend an average of $155 at their favorite malls.

While the aesthetics of the new lifestyle shopping centers are pleasing to shoppers, they are more concerned with a diverse offering of products and restaurants, cleanliness and safety, navigation, and accessibility via ample parking.

“For so long, developers said, ’If we build it, they will come,’ that these factors don’t matter,” said Paula Courtney of Verde Group. “That’s wrong.”

In another session, Matt Thornhill of the Boomer Project said there’s a refocus of energy on baby boomers. He cited some compelling data: Boomers are 76 million strong. By 2029, one out of three persons will be at least 50. Boomers spend $400 billion more annually on consumer goods than their younger counterparts. In another educational session, Kelly Mooney of Resource Interactive urged retailers to take advantage of their customers’ online presence, which can extend to blogs, social networks and e-commerce sites. One way to do that is to follow the lead of Borders books. For years, Borders relied on its partnership with Amazon.com for online sales, but last year it launched its own e-commerce vehicle, which offers shoppers a virtual world of books where they can visit the bestseller section and customize their personal bookshelves with books under their favorite topics. Borders’ site also offers a virtual book club and TV show, allowing users to discuss various topics—and giving Borders some inside intel on their shopping habits.

The NRF Expo featured technology offerings covering PLM (product lifecycle management), business intelligence, cross-channel merchandising (planning and fulfillment), e-commerce platforms and in-store solutions from kiosks to mobile technology.

Suleski said she sees technology vital to maintaining—if not gaining—a more important part of strategies to deal with the current marketplace.

“Retailers are continuing to invest in technology,” she said. “While attendance was indeed down at the show, many, if not most, of the retail people there were decision-makers or top advisors to decision-makers. And many were focused on specific objectives and technologies.”

Suleski said the smart retailers are investing in technology that is quick to implement and also has a fairly quick measurable impact on their balance sheets.

Jeff Giberstein, chief operating officer of Atlanta-based business intelligence systems provider QuantiSense, said he noticed retailers sending fewer staff members to the show.

“We received about half the number of leads we usually do, but what I qualify that with is that the interactions we had were of high quality. We came out of the show thinking it was a good event,” he said.

QuantiSense released version 4.5 of its Playbook business intelligence system, which helps retailers maximize their markups and markdowns as well as other business maneuvers by alerting them to certain events such as a certain SKU turning faster than others.