HOME GENTER MERGHANT BILL

FISHMAN

Bill Fishman & Affiliates

11650 lberia Place San Diego, Ca.92128

I USf as most retailers visit other re- lUtail operations in disrant cities, as seminar director for the National Home Center Show I monitor as many convention learning sessions as my time allows.

This weekend I attended the National Retail Merchants Association convention in New York and the Northeastern Retail Lumbermens Association convention in

Boston. My attention is usually divided between reviewing the room and platform facilities, the quality of the a/v presentation, the stage presence of the panelists, the contents of the speaker's subject matter, and the attention and reaction of the audience.

One interesting characteristic I've observed is that the morc mature and sophisticated retailers in the audience are also the most avid note takers. It appears that the more successful the retailer, the more ready he is to listen and evaluate the concepts and experiences of other retailers. I'm sure that most of these note takers have the insight to overlook the puff and gloss of the polished speaker, and the nervousness and delivery of the novice industry panelist. They cut through and extract ideas that should be considered for their operation.

Working with selected candidates for speakers at a national show, I know how much effort the retailer puts into the preparation of his talk. He fears that his audience will be measuring him against the better speaking professional and comes prepared to be less ''entertaining" but rather more descriptive of the successes andlor failures of his retailing innovations. Many of our panelists labor for months over their short addresses.

In Boston I moderated a panel of four retailers, two of which were small, rural independents. SteveFeinstein, who today owns a chain of retail building material outlets headquartered in St. Louis, was also on that panel. Feinstein is credited as being the greatest innovator in the home center industry, having guided such giants as Forest City and Grossmans and Moore's in the 196G1970 formative years of the home center industry.

I watched him as he sat on the platform waiting for his turn at the microphone. He jotted three or four notes as he listened to the brief address of the first speaker from a small New England town. He then opened his remarks by telling the audience that his expenses to the convention had easily been repaid by just one merchandising idea he recognized from the previous speech.

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Later, Feinstein told me that during that one 90 minute session he walked away with two merchandising concepts and one sales promotion theme that he will adopt for his chain. When we see these concepts and themes replayed by his chain, I expect that they will be a little more refined and a lot more productive.

Today, innovation is costly! In spite of their larger overall expense budgets, the chain operators cannot afford the experimentation freedoms they exercised in the past. I look for creative changes to come from the independent retailer and the smaller chain. But, I can't help feel that the road to success in the 1980's will be traveled not only by the early innovators but also by the early imitators.