While there have been many insightful and commercially valuable takeaways from at tenting the National Retail Federation Conference and Expo in New York this week the one negative is that on the massive (three huge halls) Expo floor most companies don’t care about small business.
I had registered as a retailer and this was reflected on my name badge. Unless I had a national network of hundreds of stores I was not that interesting to them yet more than 90% of the membership of the NRF is small business. Odd that.
If I switched and talked with my newsagency software company hat on then they were interested and keen to see how their piece of the IT pie could fit with what we do.
It has been a fascinating three day conference and a valuable five days in New York. I have made some good business connections on the IT as well as newsagency fronts despite my frustrations with the trade show. Outside of the conference I have got to see some pretty cool retail innovation and engage in a couple of worthwhile business meetings with companies here.
Over the next few days I will think about the best way to share some of the key insights. My newsagency software company is hosting a national user meeting tour starting in ten days so that might be a starting point. There are takeaways from the conference and the broader New York and Las Vegas retail experience which I think can inform newsagent decisions about the future.
Look forward to that…well done.
sorry off topic – anyone thinking of doing returns today for NDC think again they will not work i just did mine and complete waste of time they did not work all were knocked back ,they are having system problems so they will all have to be done again later