Jeff Roster » Retail events

It’s That Time Again-Gartner/RIS News Tech Study 2010 – Any Questions We Should Be Asking?

Jeff Roster — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:24:40 +0000

I find this project to be the highlight of my year for a couple of reasons:

1. Working with Joe Skorupa and the RIS News team is a real pleasure. They are a terrific group of professionals and all really love this industry.

2. There’s not an event I go to where I don’t meet a respondent to this survey. I am truly honored by the level of support retailers show to this project.

So as we edit the survey are there any questions or topics that you’d like to see us survey? If so either post a comment or send me an email at jeff.roster@gartner.com.

My Activity Schedule for NRF 2010

Jeff Roster — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 04:25:54 +0000

My schedule for NRF is filling up quite nicely. At this point all my day slots have been spoken for. But my long standing habit is to attend public or semipublic events in the evenings instead of attending private dinners. So if you happen to be at any of the below events come by and say hi. I will try and keep this updated as I commit to new events. By the way if you don’t know where any of the events are please don’t ask me. I’m assuming everyone that is invited has all the information. The schedule is subject to change but will try and keep to it as best as I can. Save travels and see ya in New York!

Saturday

9:30am – 3:30pm Retail ROI event. I’ll be on a panel in the afternoon

Sunday

4-5pm RIS News event

5-6:30PM NRF Opening Night Reception

9-11pm Retail Insiders event

Monday

5-6:30pm IBM event

7-9pm Private event

Tuesday

9-11pm Oracle Mixer

Black Friday/CyberMonday Reflections

Jeff Roster — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:20:06 +0000

In all the noise surrounding these to events the one that caused me to stop in my tracks and think for a minute was the below tweet from Nicole Maestri of Reuters:

With all these Thanksgiving day and pre-Thanksgiving sales, I wonder how much longer Black Friday will actually mean anything?

She asks a very provocative question? Absolutely is my answer. Here’s why:

Consumers embrace it- Despite all the machinations to the contrary consumers respond to Black Friday. My visits to various malls at 0 dark 30 Friday saw lines forming outside doors. News feeds from around the country illustrate that was not just a Silicon Valley phenomena

Reminder- Serves as an anchor in the calendar -There is no question that retailers have made concerted efforts to draw the Black Friday frenzy into early November. Perhaps the two best examples are Sears with their “Black Friday Now” ad campaign that kicked off Halloween weekend and BestBuy posting all their circulars through Christmas on their website thereby giving people confidence in when the best deals are to be had. But the key here is the pivotpoint is still Black Friday. That serves as the launching point. It’s a dramatic reminder for consumes to get about the important business of holiday shopping. That is =not going to change for the foreseeable future.

Publicity, publicity, publicity- You’d be hard pressed for find a news outlet that didn’t have a reporters covering Black Friday activities. There is clearly huge interest in the idea. I monitored various news feeds where retail shopping stories dominated the day. Local radio stations provided traffic updates and I would venture to say every single news station had a reporter doing a standup at a mall with harried shoppers in the background. Retailers will always capitalize on the free exposure.

Not your fathers Black Friday -I’m comfortable that Black Friday and probably Cyber Monday are here to stay for the foreseeable future. But what is changing dramatically is how retailers utilize the day. I believe this year saw the emergence of retailers use of social media to drive marketing strategies. Many of the examples were interesting, innovative and fresh. But next year social media will not sneak up on anybody, including the consumers. Next years campaigns will try and draw the consumer into a tighter dynamic with the retailer. Black Friday will serve to focus these efforts.

See ya next year at 4:30am!

Retail Story at Oracle OpenWorld

Jeff Roster — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:49:11 +0000

Next week I will be attending the first two days of Oracle OpenWord. Most of my two days will be spend at the Palace Hotel where the retail sessions are. So if you plan on being at OOW and at any of the sessions or events listed below please feel free to come by and say hi.

Monday Oct 12

10-11        Client Meetings
11-12:30   International Expansion Strategies
1-3:30       Retail General Session
4-5:30       Crisis to Opportunity
7-10          Retail Reception

Tuesday Oct 13
7-8:30      Breakfast Meeting
9-11         Client Meetings
11-12:30 Customer Centric Retail Strategies
1-2          Client Meetings
2:30-4      Client Meetings

Please feel free to pass along any good retail stories I should look into. My Twitter ID is JeffPR

What I’m Doing at NRF

Jeff Roster — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 07:46:29 +0000

As promised here’s my NRF evening schedule. Hopefully I won’t regret doing this. But like the great NRF Twitter experiment 2009 we’ll see how this goes. If you are a reader to this blog feel free to look me up and say hi if you’re at any of these events. I’d love to hear your thoughts on Retail 2009.

Sunday

NRF Reception -5 to 6:30PM
Retail Insiders Reception – 9 to 11PM

Monday

IBM Event – 6:30- 8PM
Microsoft Event – 8 – 9:30PM
RIS News Executive Cordials Reception – 9:30PM – 11PM
Oracle After Hours event 11PM -?

Tuesday

Blogging 6:30 – 10PM

MY Twitter id is JeffPR

Use #NRF with any of your NRF related Tweets.