Display & Design Ideas - February 2009 - (Page 32)

32 show preview GlobalShop 2009 By Jessie Bove, Managing Editor, and Jamar Laster, Contributing Editor Photo: Courtesy of The Venetian, Las Vegas C elebrating its 17th year, GlobalShop will be taking over the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas from March 23-25, 2009. As the largest annual tradeshow for the store design, visual merchandising and in-store marketing industries, GlobalShop features six market-focused pavilions—The Store Fixturing Show, The Visual Merchandising Show, At-Retail Marketplace, Store Design & Operations, The Digital Store and Retail Marketing Services. This year, GlobalShop will host a Green Products Showcase area, highlighting green products for use in retail environments, and giving attendees the opportunity to vote for their favorites. Digital Signage Day also returns this year on March 24, with specialized speaker sessions and more. The exhibition hall will feature more than 700 suppliers, while the conference line-up will host the industry’s top talents as speakers. Read on for a taste of what’s in store… “TrendEffect” and “Broadscan” as two key steps in the five-step process. For example, TrendEffect involves understanding the trends that affect consumerism, assessing how they will impact your business and incorporating that assessment into your design. Broadscan involves evaluating innovations outside your industry and assessing whether they are relevant to your business. In this session, attendees also will learn the importance of anticipating competitors’ actions during the planning of new concepts, and why “trend thinking should form the foundations of design intent,” Rodmell says. This session will give attendees practical, real-life examples on how retailers with consumer data can turn this into a strong competitive advantage by using insights on how their most important customers are changing their behavior in the face of these difficult economic times. Doing so is how retailers can turn current market challenges into opportunities. Allison Westrick and Rojon Hasker—Back to the Future: Safeway’s New Neighborhood Market Session 13 (March 24, noon-1 p.m.) When Pleasanton, Calif.-based grocery chain Safeway Inc. developed its small-format brand, its target demographic was an urban, time-crunched, neighborhood customer. The chain worked with WD Partners to develop “The Allison Westrick Market,” which is designed around the customer’s needs and addresses shopping occasions for convenience. In this session, Allison Westrick, prototype director, WD Partners, and Rojon Hasker, president and general manager of Lifestyle, Safeway, will identify the challenges of remodeling an existing site into a completely new format. They also will highlight key considerations in the process, including the reason behind the new format, whether the new format necessitates a new brand and how the team managing the format will be structured. The speakers also will illustrate one of the most important factors determining a new format’s success: the customers. “One of the keys to success is understanding the location of the store and the surrounding community,” Westrick says. “You have to be able to meet [the community’s] needs, and after day one, you have to set your organization up to support it.” Attendees also will get a firsthand glimpse of Safeway’s new format, learn what the implementation included and how to innovate and set up formats within their own organizations. www.ddimagazine.com Brian Ross—The New Frugality Session 11 (March 24, 10:30 a.m.11:30 a.m.) The current economic downturn is having a profound effect on the American consumer’s shopping behaviors. Brian Ross, general manager of Precima, will explore these behavioral changes in a session titled, “The New FruBrian Ross gality: How Retailers Can Take Advantage of the Slumping Economy’s Lasting Impact on American Shopping Behavior.” A Precima nationwide survey revealed that 82 percent of U.S. consumers said they will continue cooking at home instead of dining out, even after the economy improves. In addition, 84 percent said they will keep looking for specials in store fliers after the economy improves. And as budgets become tighter, consumers indicated they have cut back on convenience foods like frozen dinners (50 percent), snack items (46 percent) and desserts (44 percent). In the face of these changes, only retailers who adapt and make adjustments will benefit. “It’s more important than ever for retailers who have customer purchasing data from their loyalty programs to use that information to adjust their strategies to today’s changing retail environment,” Ross says. To do this, he says, retailers must identify their “most valuable customers in order to offer the right products at the right price.” Patrick Rodmell— Future Proofing Session 8 (March 23, 3 p.m.-4 p.m.) In today’s retail environment, the only certainty is that things will always be in a state of flux. Patrick Rodmell The status quo of today will most certainly be an afterthought in the future. Being successful in a constantly fluctuating environment requires the establishment of a “future-proof” retail strategy, where emphasis is placed on presenting something new and exciting to customers based on the visiting frequency of loyal customers. “Say six weeks is the frequency of visits of your most loyal customer,” says Patrick Rodmell, president and CEO, Watt International Inc. “Then, every six weeks, you need a new experience [in your store]. That doesn’t mean the whole store has to change. But you have to figure out the best ‘strike zones’ to impact the customer.” Watt International has developed a plan dedicated to helping clients in their future-proofing efforts. Rodmell says the company has trademarked terms like February 2009 http://www.ddimagazine.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Display & Design Ideas - February 2009

Display & Design Ideas - February 2009
From the Editor
Contents
News Watch
Book Report
Editor's Choice
Cover Story: Channel Focus: Toy Retail
Zu + Elements
Zonik
Weathering the Storm: Part 1
Right Light
Product Spotlight
GlobalShop Preview
GlobalShop Products
Calendar
Advertisers
Classifieds
Think Tank

Display & Design Ideas - February 2009