More Stores = More Sales

From what I see and hear, retail store openings will doubtless grow in 2010. Does anyone doubt this? It's a good time for retailers for several reasons:

(1) Retailer balance sheets are improved from a year ago.
(2) Landlords remain in weakened states due to
(a) lots of empty inventory,
(b) heavy debt loads, and
(c) dwindling property values.
(3) Retailers can drive better bargains with landlords for more or better space.
(4) Retail sales (US) grew an estimated 1.8% over the holidays.

This bodes well for brands seeking to grow - or at least maintain - share of market. And as stores expand or upgrade, store fixtures need expanding and upgrading, too. That's good news for at-retail experts like Tusco Display and the point-of-purchase industry as a whole.

Granted, this year will look terrific compared to 2009 but will surely pale in comparison with 2011 as job growth accelerates, consumer confidence grows and the economy finally rebounds. We're moving from days of the Vicious Cycle (declining home values = less consumer confidence = belt-tightening by consumers = belt-tightening by companies = job losses = less consumer confidence) to a Virtuous Cycle (improved profitability = business expansion = more hiring = more consumer confidence = retail sales growth). I like this new cycle a lot more than the last one. How about you?

UX @ POP

Name a profession more prone to acronyms than advertising. OK, OK, name one not associated with the government (e.g., TARP, FOMC, SSN) or the military (e.g., DefCon 1, CINCPAC, IED). Part coyness, part quickwittedness, we love to develop new shorthand ways of conveying information and showing off a special lingo. We're in the know, you know.

One of the latest in the digital arena is UX: user experience. According to Wikipedia, it's often used to describe "interactions with a particular product or service, its delivery, and related artifacts, according to their design." We're talking iPods, Kindles, Droid phones and website navigation. UX warms the cockles of digitarians everywhere like UV rays have warmed George Hamilton's skin for decades. Mmmm, toasty!

Truth be told, however, the folks who create in-store merchandising are the kings and queens of UX. The point of purchase is the only place where the product, potential purchaser and the pelf (that's an alliterative stretch but work with me here) share the same space. The POP is the last three feet of any marketing plan - but you wouldn't know it by all the hue and cry arising from the advertising world.

Sure, lots of buying happens online and it continues to grow. But, as Michael Tsiros, chair of the marketing department at the University of Miami School of Business Administration reports in CNNMoney.com, online shopping accounts for less than 5% of all retail purchases, excluding gas and food.

Want a bigger share of that five percent or the 95%? Hmmm, let me think... Concentrating less on reaching people on their handheld devices and more on reaching people handling products in stores seems a more sensible way to generate sales. To do anything else would be FUBAR.

Building Blocks

Remember those faux building blocks we had as kids? Though creating a fortress was fun, it was more fun knocking the walls down, wasn't it?

The year just past knocked down a lot of walls: sales plans constructed, parapets of anticipated profits, moats dug and filled to keep bad things from reaching us. Many of these things tumbled to the ground in 2009. And none of it was any fun.

A New Year has dawned with opportunities to rebuild. I see us stacking corrugated bricks again. Except we won't build the same way we did last time. We'll more carefully consider our footers, the materials we choose, and the methods we employ. Better bricks and more muscular mortar will make us stronger, better able to withstand challenges to the fortresses that we want to believe our businesses are.

Mike Lauber
www.linkedin.com/mikelauber
www.tuscodisplay.com
mrlauber@tuscodisplay.com