ETD: 973 What now?; Conference Focused on Retail Outlook;
Software as a Service: The Next Big Thing
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post at gapent.com
Thu Apr 27 12:24:11 GMT 2006
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0973 April 27, 2006
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem at gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
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CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] What now?
[3] Conference Focused on Retail Outlook
[4] Software as a Service: The Next Big Thing
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
Now that the holidays (including Valentine's Day)
are over, what are you doing to increase
business? Maybe it's time to invent holidays or
become another Crazy Eddie (or George, or Sarah, or Moishe, or Abdul.....)
There was an interesting conference here in NYC
which focused on the retail outlook. Maria
Weiskott and Matthew Kalash summarizes the conference for us today.
What's the next big thing? Software as a Service
(SaaS). Is Microsoft missing out again as they
almost did in 1995? What do you think? BTW,
list member Jules Kaplan offers this service as
he reported in a recent Special Report:
"Businesses Adopt Online Payments to Improve Cash
Flow and Save Time and Money." (#962, March 14, 2006)
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, LLC
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] What now?
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Holidays are over; Valentine's Day is finished;
now what? What will you be doing to get
business? Mother's Day is in a couple of weeks,
another biggie. Then comes Father's Day, which
isn't so big. Then we have graduations which are also nice gift-giving times.
Maybe you should invent new gift-giving
days? How about "over-the-hump" days (Weds)? Or
end of Taxes day? Or "end of month day"?
Hallmark has done well with these types of
card-giving days. Why not invent some of your
own? Who knows, maybe it will catch on.
It comes down to what I have said in earlier
digests. Take advantage of the situation, the
neighborhood and the time to promote your
business. What do the ethnics in your area do
now? Is there a holiday coming up that you
should know about? As an example, with Orthodox
Jews, every Friday night begins Shabbos which
means wine, flowers and candy are bought as gifts
(kosher, of course). Catholics celebrate mass on
Sunday. Perhaps something for them.
The point is, you should let your imagination run
wild. Do things that will bring in
business. Eddie Antar of the Crazy Eddie fame
got his name from the bizarre approach he took to
getting customers. In his NYC electronics store
they had a mezzanine where Eddie would stand
watching his sales staff deal with
customers. One day he shouted loudly "Don't let
that customer out of here until he buys! Lock
the doors!" That got him the name "Crazy Eddie."
So, become another Crazy Eddie.
George
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[3] Conference Focused on Retail Outlook
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A conference entitled “Retail/Apparel Landscape —
2010 & Beyond” took place recently at the
Princeton Club in New York City. Speakers
included Burt Tansky, president and CEO of the
Neiman Marcus Group, Joe Feczko, executive vice
president and chief creative officer of Federated
Department Stores, Robert Drbul, managing
director and senior analyst of Lehman Brothers,
and Trudy Sullivan, president of Liz Claiborne Inc.
Though the discussion focused primarily on
apparel, issues in that market have a direct
correlation to other segments of the retail
industry, including gifts and home decor. Among
topics discussed were the broad picture of where
and how retailing will evolve, adapt and change;
what will happen to the smaller players in the
industry; and the influence of the Internet and
other technology on the retail market.
Key points included:
• Consolidation will continue, with even more mergers and acquisitions.
• Warehouse clubs and superstores will continue
to grow and take business away from the department stores.
• Independent specialty retailers and small
“mom-and-pop” stores will do what they've always
done best, and what big stores can't or won't do
— give great service and present alternative
lifestyle looks and products that aren't found everywhere else.
• Big chains will increasingly tailor each store to local needs.
• Private label branding will take on greater
importance, giving stores more control over
costs; destination brands are expected to hold
their own while unbranded goods lose market share.
• More vendors will utilize their own retail
outlets to gain greater control over presentation
of products, which will lead to increased sales
through all channels of distribution.
• Retailers need to adapt to consumers who are
ethnically diverse, savvy, time-pressed and want
connection and personal service.• Technology and
the Internet will increasingly affect the way we
shop, as well as how retailers and vendors operate behind the scenes.
Business will continue to become more
interactive; the web is a marketing tool that has
not yet been used to maximum potential.
Presented by management consulting firm Emanual
Weintraub Associates, the conference attracted a
diverse audience of luxury apparel retailers,
bankers, wholesalers and manufacturers and market
center executives, including Bill Winsor and
Cindy Morris of the Dallas Market Center.
Maria Weiskott, Editor In Chief
Matthew Kalash, Managing Editor
Gifts & Dec Online
www.GiftsandDec.com
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[4] Software as a Service: The Next Big Thing
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In a now legendary 1995 memo, Bill Gates raised
the alarm that Microsoft was woefully unprepared
for what he termed the "Internet Tidal Wave."
Fast forward 10 years to last October, and Gates
blasts out another high-priority e-mail, this
time warning of a coming "services wave" of
applications available instantly over the
Internet. "The next sea change is upon us," he writes.
Ringing in Gates' ears must have been the roar of
Google -- and the Web 2.0 hordes, whose XML-based
mash-ups of sites are transforming the Web
experience. As Gates observed in that same
message, however, SaaS (software as a service)
isn't new. Nor is it restricted to the consumers,
developers, and very small businesses that
Microsoft is targeting with its customizable
Windows Live page and Office Live free Web site and collaboration service.
Salesforce.com, founded in 1999 and still the
standard bearer of SaaS business applications, is
enjoying dramatic growth, reaching 399,000
subscribers at the end of its most recent fiscal
quarter. Employease, which launched in 1996, now
delivers HR management through the browser to
more than 1,000 customers managing more than
700,000 employee records. And among the major
software vendors, Microsoft is hardly the only one exploring SaaS.
"All the big players are now in the water," says
Rick McGee, vice president of SaaS strategy for
IBM Global Services, noting that Microsoft,
Oracle, and SAP are staking their claims.
McGee should know. IBM provides the platform for
SAP's new entry into hosted CRM. IBM also has
been busy assisting SaaS startups -- the darlings
of the VC community -- to create a network of
partners that can provide IBM customers with quick-to-market solutions.
Meanwhile, SaaS ecosystems are emerging, such as
the on-demand, SOA-based platform developed by
Rearden Commerce, which connects business
customers with travel, shipping, and other
service providers through identity-based Web
apps. And then there's Salesforce.com's exciting
new AppExchange platform, which offers a hosted
space for sharing Salesforce.com-based apps that
the company calls "an iTunes for business applications."
All this activity, however, doesn't mean the SaaS
wave is poised to engulf traditional licensed
software. SaaS's share of the business
application market today is more like a drop in
the bucket. And enterprises have been slow to
embrace SaaS, raising objections over reliability
and availability, underscored by recent Salesforce.com outages.
Yet the arrival of the big enterprise-software
guns, the emergence of integrated business
communities in the cloud, and increasing
desperation on the part of I.T. to minimize
application deployment and maintenance hassles,
suggest that SaaS is on the verge of much faster adoption.
Lot's more detail at...
http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=122000033VI8
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