2020 Lessons

After spending two information packed days with retatilers, industry experts and vendors at Retail2020 in San Francisco last week. I have a billion takeaways, but here are a few quick lessons I learned that you might also implement in your lives/stores. And to anyone else who attended event - let's start talking here and let us all know what you garnered from attending.

From Phil Lempert's consumer panel - Consumers don't always identify with brand names in the kitchenware arena as I thought they would. It was interesting to see the struggle they had naming cookware brands, but still they knew the uses for cookware and what they wanted.

From Harold Lloyd - Visit 26 stores a year to keep my retail knowlege fresh and insightful. Also be sure those stores aren't simply specialty food and kitchenware stores, but stores that cater to specific consumers. Watch the trends and pay attention to how they are merchandising and talking in those stores.

I also learned some working habits from Harold - splitting my week into 55 hours for work, 55 for sleep, 55 for family and 3 for me - does that math work out? Yes, but perhaps it doesn't apply to the publishing industry. But it's certainly a goal for the year 2020!

Another thing is to divide my periodical reading amongst my staff and have them report back to me their findings - great story ideas, new trends, and for me publishing design trends. This works for consumer magazines as well. Another great idea was to pay your team a bonus for vacations - that is while they are on vacation to pay them a bonus or reward if they come back with a great idea from a specialty food or kitchenware store. I love it - I have some ideas how to implement this with my own staff.

If you were at The Gourmet Retailer's Retail2020 Conference, let me know what you learned. If you weren't and have great business or management tips to share with other retailers, sound off now!

And here are some photos from the event I wanted to share. Cheers!