It’s Sunday morning at the annual National Retail Federation Big Show in New York City and there is a mix of excitement, intensity and competitiveness is in the air…. 

Some of you may wonder what I was doing at a tradeshow on Sunday.  Well, I don’t usually spend my Sundays going to tradeshows.  However, I felt compelled to get to the NRF show for its opening day.   Unfortunately, it always seems to me like the best sessions at NRF are held on Sunday – especially in the morning.  However, one good thing about this year’s show is that it is one week earlier.  Normally, the show is held on the week of the Martin Luther King holiday, which means that to attend the conference you may have to forgo not only a Sunday, but a holiday Monday as well.  However there are a number of benefits to being at NRF on Sunday morning.  In my opinion it is really the best time to be there - not just because there are great speakers and content, but because of the atmosphere.   

The first session I attended was a presentation by Dr. Ira Kalish of Deloitte’s research group.  Every year at the NRF show, STORES Magazine and Deloitte release their annual “Global Powers of Retailing” report.  This is one of two retail industry studies that I look forward to each year.   The other is AT Kearney’s Global Retail Development Index - http://www.atkearney.com/shared_res/pdf/GRDI_2007.pdf.   I often carry a hard copy of the Deloitte study with me in my briefcase because it proves to be a useful reference throughout the year.   This year’s version does not appear to be online yet, but the 2007 report is posted at www.deloitte.com/dtt/cda/doc/content/Global%20Powers%20of%20Retailing_07(3).pdf if you are interested.    

I will share a few of the results from the 2008 study.  The top 10 global retailers were listed as:

1. Wal-Mart
2. Carrefour
3. Home Depot
4. Tesco
5. Metro
6. Kroger
7. Target
8. Costco
9. Sears Holdings
10. Schwarz 

A few other interesting insights from the 2008 study: 

• US Leadership – 37% of the Top 250 global retailers were based in the US.  45.5% of sales from the Top 250 were from the US market.  Most of the US leaders are non-grocery retailers and most only sell in the US.  Apparel is particularly strong with the US claiming the top 5 global chains worldwide.
• Emerging Markets - Chinese retailers are growing quickly with 6 retailers in the Top 250 and 3 of the Top 10 fastest growing chains (GOME, Suning Appliance and AS Watson).  There are no Indian retailers in the Top 250.  However, Russia and Eastern Europe are well represented.  In fact, Russia’s electronics retailer Euroset Group is the world’s fastest growing chain as measured by 2001-2006 sales.
• Sector Analysis – Hardlines, which as defined by Deloitte includes consumer electronics, office supplies and toy retailers, was the most globalized sector with leaders such as IKEA (37 countries), PPR (45 countries) and Toys “R” Us (35 countries) represented on several continents.   Hardlines enjoyed 14.5% CAGR from 2001 to 2006 – largely driven by the housing bubble in markets such as the US and UK. 

These are a few of the highlights from the study, but they don’t do justice to the outstanding presentation delivered by Dr. Kalish.  He provided what I think is the most succinct and easy-to-understand explanation of the root causes of the global credit crunch and its relationship to the US trade deficit and mortgage crisis that I have heard from anyone.  He then went on to reveal some fascinating insights about the retail market in 2007 and some intriguing predictions about what we can expect in the years to come.  While, Dr. Kalish’s presentation was without question the best session I attended all day, I could not help being somewhat distracted by my peers in the audience.   One of the most interesting aspects of the Sunday morning sessions at NRF is the attendee demographics and behaviors you observe.  On Sunday most of the attendees are not actually from the US, but instead from overseas.  There is a particularly large contingent from Europe and Latin America.  The Asian and the Middle Eastern countries are also represented, but with significantly fewer attendees.  These attendees are all hard-core retail types.   Many of them have traveled more than 3,000 miles to hear from the leading US strategists on innovations in consumer marketing, real estate and store design.   Although it is a Sunday most of this group is dressed in business attire.  And many are carrying digital cameras which they use to take snapshots of important slides presented during the conference.  By the way, these are not the disposable cameras you buy from a street merchant in Times Square or even the standard consumer digital cameras you use to take pictures of your family.  These are high end digital SLRs, which reflects both the passion and intensity of the audience.

Another excellent session I attended was titled “How America Shops” by a firm called WSL Strategic Retail.  I had not heard for WSL (www.wslstrategicretail.com) prior to this show, but I was very impressed by the presentation given by Wendy Liebmann, their Founder and Chief Shopper.  This session was attended by another capacity crowd eager to learn from WSL’s findings about consumer preferences and shopping behaviors. The theme of the presentation was “It’s Anarchy,” referring to the erratic buying behaviors exhibited by US consumers.  However, the theme proved to also be excellent foreshadowing for the end of the session.  WSL had produced about 100 color copies of the presentation handouts.  However, the room must have had at least 400 attendees.  As the session broke there was a mad rush by the crowd of to get a hard copy of the presentation.  People were literally pushing, shoving and kicking each other to make their way to the table to grab a copy.  It reminded me of being stuck in a mosh pit.  It is hard to believe that one would observe this type of behavior on a Sunday morning at a retail tradeshow, but as I stated above – these folks are hard core.  I did manage to get a copy of the handout, which I am considering auctioning on eBay…

Steve Keifer

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