HAPPY NEW YEAR?

   As we flip our calendars and move into a new year, take a moment to consider what kind of year you want.  For me, Happy isn’t the best adjective for what I seek.  How about you?  Let me suggest some others.

   Heady: Make 2013 potent, even intoxicating.

   Hearty: Let your year overflow with meaty challenges that, as you overcome them, each makes you better.

   Helpful:  May you find ways to help but also allow yourself to be helped.

   Historic: Let the year ahead prove noteworthy and memorable.  “Remember 2013?  Now, THAT was a year!”

   Healthy: May your health and that of your loved ones be hale.

   Heartfelt: Be earnest, even passionate, in whatever you undertake. 

   Humorous: Laugh at yourself and your circumstances – not others – and encourage others to do the same.  Life’s too short to take it all too seriously.

   Handmade: Craft and mold the year into what you want.  Get your fingerprints all over it. 

   Hospitable: Pick your friends – but not to pieces.  Even when you vie with rivals, compete without being a jerk.

   Hardworking: May you do work worth doing and do it with gusto.

   However you choose to describe the new year, make it your own.  Just as no two people are alike, so too are no two years alike.  Best wishes for your own, personal, one-of-a-kind New Year.

PEOPLE ARE THE BEST P-O-P

   As shoppers crowd their local malls these days, basking in holiday spirit as the late Andy Williams croons “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” over the PA, some retail associates want to rip the speakers out of the walls after hearing that song dozens of times a day. For many of them, it’s the most dreadful time of the year.  

   And that’s a problem.  Retailers’ success or failure hinge on successful holiday sales.  How well they prepare, arm and treat their own employees can have a bigger impact on their corporate performance than having the best price on the hottest products.

   Retail clerks work longer hours, interact with more anxious, time-pressed shoppers and face more demands with a whirling array of special offers and discounts this time of year.  It’s not easy to keep a smile when you’re standing at a cash register for eight or 10 hours with a never-ending line of shoppers laden with too many packages and too little patience.

   Display and fixture designers, producers and installers can’t stop some crabby shopper from jumping down a sales clerk’s throat but we can – and DO – make the shopping AND selling experience better by presenting products effectively, helping the shopper find what they want and improving the retail environment.  As an industry, we make it a more wonderful time of the year for all.

   And, when you’re out shopping, take a moment to be extra kind to the people ringing up your purchases.  They can use some extra Christmas cheer this time of year.

HOLIDAY SEASON DASH

   Black Friday has traditionally been the start of major holiday buying but it has crept into what some now call Gray Thursday – Thanksgiving Day.  Did you shop in-person or online on Thanksgiving?  If you did, you joined 28% of all American shoppers who shopped before midnight Thu.  Over the entire weekend, three-quarters of all Americans – men, women & children, young and old - shopped.  Holy Kris Kringle!  Read more about it here. 

   Shopping has become a blood sport in American culture where people vie for the best deals, scramble for the hottest products and scheme to “win” at shopping.  Can you image anyone going to such lengths 30 years ago? 

   Throughout the year, displays and fixtures silently but effectively present products and services that shoppers may consider for purchase.  During the holiday season, though, retailers and brand marketers turn to megaphones – TV & radio ads, print campaigns, email blasts, online pop-up ads – to get our attention and possibly win our wallets in spite of knowing that 70% of all purchase decisions are made in-store.

   Not unlike the recently-ended political season, I hear people wishing for more civility, lower stress and less strident communications.  But, just like politicians, marketers know: noise works.  And, as long as we respond to that noise and vote with our dollars, we’ll keep getting it.   

INSOURCE TO BE IN SYNC

The Atlantic magazine features an article this month that highlights the transformation in thinking at one of America's greatest industrial powerhouses.  GE has remade their Appliance Park (KY) facilities to return much of their appliance manufacturing from other countries to the United States.  They're doing it because it makes economic sense.

The same benefits that accrue to a GE benefit buyers of custom store fixtures and point-of-purchase displays, too.  Chasing the cheapest labor has costs.  Too many consumer package goods companies, retailers and fixture producers have learned this the hard way.

We see more store equipment destined for North American stores with "Made in America" today and expect to see more because (a) transportation costs have grown; (b) Asian labor rates have climbed while American labor rates have stagnated; (c) American workers are objectively the most productive in the world; (d) project time lines are compressed and will only become more so; (e) US manufacturers have invested in labor-saving technologies and processes, e.g., Lean, to reduce costs as a matter of survival; (f) non-labor factors of manufacturing - raw materials, energy, space, equipment, capital - are relatively plentiful and affordable in North America; and (g) seamless coordination makes for better outcomes.  Insourcing lets us better synchronize and meet the needs of retailers, CPGs, designers and manufacturers.

North American manufacturers can compete with anyone in the world - and are only getting better.