Display & Design Ideas - December 2008 - (Page 48)

48 shopping with Paco A scary ride lobal stock markets are tanking, giving up years of gains. Many of us are glued to the Web trying hard not to look at our portfolios or retirement accounts. Our larger consumer culture is on the edge of wrenching change. Our addiction to oil and our dependence on mortgage and credit card debt all has to end. It will be a painful transition to what will be a much healthier society. Come February, as the holiday numbers come in, the American retail landscape will undergo a titanic shift. More than a few major chains are going under—including some that have been household icons for decades. Very few of them will emerge from bankruptcy, and most will join the roster of past brands that include Korvette’s, Gimbel’s and Crazy Eddie—names kept alive only in trivia contests. These are tough times to be a merchant. Americans have slammed their wallets shut on a broad assortment of goods and services. Large, durable purchases, such as cars, furniture and new appliances, are being postponed. Expensive restaurants have empty tables, and cruise ships have vacant cabins. I, like many of you, am getting networking calls and résumés as friends and colleagues troll for new jobs. As I walk home through the streets of New York City, I see storefronts that have been empty for months. The commercial real estate market is just beginning to see asking rents decline. Retail has always been about birth and death. Death frees up people and space. So, what’s in the pipeline, and what’s in the cards? Our homes are too big, our cars are too big and our stores are too big. The big box and über-mall are not going to disappear, but will be placed in context. Our supplychain management can keep a smaller store better stocked. Call it an extension of our “just in time” manufacturing process. Think of smaller, better-designed Targets, Krogers and Walgreens that also serve as delivery points for online shopping. This is also convergence, in that “bricks” and “clicks” are integrated. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is in the process of getting re-ordered. From India to Africa, from Richmond, Va., to Seattle, our need to communicate and be reachable is paramount. For most global citizens, the mobile phone bill gets paid before rent, utilities and credit cards. Our phones are going to take on a series of new roles. We are G going to download information everywhere from aisles of stores, to the streets, to the classroom. Point and get. They will be our wallets—just as now, in some emerging markets, minutes have become a transportable currency. People always eat. Chicago has seen its first organic burger restaurant called Epic Burger, which offers fresh local produce and virtuous meat. Murray’s Cheese— the New York City institution—opened its new concept called the “Real Salami,” selling artisan meats. The fresh and local movement has real legs. Farmers’ markets and co-op buying are ways of buying better and healthier. Let it Bee Honey in New York sold out its first crop of Upper East Side Honey from hives tucked in corners of penthouse gardens. For reasons better explained in their blog (http://sortquenchdump.blogspot.com) on all things apicultural, urban honey has some unique virtues. Local honey contributes to building your local immune systems. Besides, honeybees are good for the planet, rarely sting and work for free. So my advice, stealing from the legendary Mary Poppins’ famous quote, is—“a spoon full of [honey] helps the medicine go down.” Paco Underhill is the founder of Envirosell and author of the books “Why We Buy” and “Call of the Mall.” Considered to be the retail industry’s “first shopping anthropologist,” he shares some of his insights with us in a bimonthly column. + AN N O U N C E TH E PARTN E R S H I P O F 2 G R EAT C O M PAN I E S LCM-Group, A Toronto based manufacturer of custom wood, metal, glass showcases, interior millwork and furniture–focused at the retail, hotel, and restaurant markets has formed a partnership with RPM Alliances. We manufacture and manage the process of supplying high quality and highly competitive products to some of the best companies in North America. RPM Alliances compliment the LCM-Group with a full service design/marketing/project management and logistics support team along with their offshore manufacturing partners. Number 30 at www.ddimagazine.com/readerservice For more information www.rpmalliances.com 416.650.0981 www.ddimagazine.com December 2008 http://sortquenchdump.blogspot.com http://www.rpmalliances.com http://www.rpmalliances.com http://www.ddimagazine.com/readerservice http://www.ddimagazine.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Display & Design Ideas - December 2008

Display & Design Ideas - December 2008
From the Editor
Contents
News Watch
DDI’s Leadership Forum 2008
Consumer insights
Editor’s Choice
Snapshots
Alexander McQueen
Eye On: Luxury
Right Light
In-Store Technology
Product Spotlight
New York Report
DDI’s NADI Show Preview
New York Retail
New York Restaurants
Calendar
Advertisers
Classifieds
Shopping with Paco

Display & Design Ideas - December 2008