Category: Blog
Personal Note: Big changes for the man behind the blog
After 15 consecutive years making my living as a principal for well established retail merchandising firms… I’m finally hanging out my own shingle.
Effective this week, I’m now an independent consultant available for hire. (more)
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2009 Retail Year in Review
2009 was a tumultuous year for US Retailers. We entered the year in the throws of a recession that resulted in the bankruptcy of Circuit City. The ongoing economic challenges kept the likes of Gordon Brothers Group busy as they helped numerous retails close stores and liquidate assets.
While it wasn’t fun, we’ve clearly been over retailed in the US for some time. The economic climate created a unique opportunity for many retailers to slow their expansion plans, trim underperforming stores, and generally get more healthy without raising the ire of their public markets.
And there is some reason for optimism as well, many retailers continued to innovate. (more)
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In Las Vegas for Global Shop 2009
The annual gathering of retail designers and in-store marketers starts Monday in Las Vegas. I’m in town and will be blogging a recap of the show. Last year, the show was over spring break, during some unseasonably bad weather in Chicago, and attendance was lack-luster. At the time, I speculated that it was also a bit quiet because the show started a month after the much larger EuroShop which takes place every three years in Dusseldorf, Germany. (more)
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Microsoft returns to retail. Blogosphere already assumes it will fail.
Last week Microsoft announced plans to open its own retail stores to "transform the PC and Microsoft buying experience," the company said Wednesday as it hired David Porter as corporate vice president of Retail Stores.
Although Microsoft hasn’t publicized the scope or mission of this new retail initiative. Many reporters and bloggers responded by immediately assuming the stores will directly complete with Apple and that Microsoft’s efforts will fall short of the Apple experience. (more)
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Microsoft Surface in 2011
In my 2008 CES recap post, I mentioned that while Microsoft had some great demos, and did a terrific job of brainstorming customer experiences for a multi-touch interface, I didn’t expect them to be able to get the Surface hardware to market.
According to Fortune Magazine, Microsoft now doesn’t expect to make Surface available until 2011. I’m guessing we’ll see multi-touch implementations from others long before that.
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Next up…. Global Shop
The next stop on the tour is Chicago for Global Shop. My company MTI has an exhibit here, and the team has been working long hours to get the booth constructed while complying with the all the quirky Chicago exhibitor rules. The show opens tomorrow, and I’ll look forward to posting a recap. If you happen to be attending the show, feel free to stop by booth 3416 and say hello. (more)
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First post!
I’ve been meaning to start this blog for years… it’s amazing what you can accomplish when you take a half day off from work.
Anyway, I spend my days thinking about how to create great customer experiences that help shoppers make purchase decisions, and while I get called upon to work in a lot of interesting product categories, I’m especially fortunately that a good portion of my work is in the consumer electronics industry, allowing me to feed my inner geek. So it’s only natural that I named this blog, retailgeek (I’m just not that clever).
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