EXPERIENCE IS EVERYTHING

Building Better Retail is a “theme” that we have been working on for this year’s Showcase. Sure, we have had some fun themes for the show in the past, but I often ask the question—did those themes actually help anyone’s business? Don’t get me wrong, the experience is part of the journey and providing fun and positive experiences is a top focus for retail and travel etc. But ultimately—was there a positive impact on your business?

So, I’ve been thinking about what steps we could take to show our members that we truly care about the success of their businesses and their communities. While this was apparent during our response to Covid, we now need to place our focus on other opportunities.

What obstacles are present that prevent business owners from evolving their business operations? I looked back at an article from 2019 that was focused on Effective Merchandising and Store Design written by Rob Wilbrink from Burlington Merchandising and Fixtures (BMF). That article has a list of some great stats that are still relevant today. (The article is still available on our website if you are interested in reading it. (https://bit.ly/yardstick1) What I found most interesting was that the biggest gains in market share are generally made by dealers who have the financial ability and confidence to invest during recessionary times. This makes sense as dealers have time to work on their business when with it’s slower. It takes that time to focus and add value to the planning process.

With messages of both optimism and doom and gloom coming at us daily—depending on who you talk to—it’s tough to predict what 2023 will bring. We are certain that winter is upon us which usually means a little bit of a slowdown. This presents a great time for dealers to work on their business, attend the WRLA Showcase and explore some new options including store redesign, new technologies, e-commerce tech, CRM’s, new products and more!

To help start the conversation, the WRLA and BMF are partnering to introduce this year’s theme for the 2023 Showcase: Building Better Retail! We recently caught up with Sarah Hounslow of BMF and Marc Atiyolil from the Marc & Mandy Show to speak about the importance of customer experience. It was a reminder of how important it is to consider the needs of our customers along with some strategies to maintain the benefits of that focus. Tune into our most recent podcast to listen to what turned out to be an incredible conversation!

There are so many factors in building better retail and we invite you to join us at the 2023 WRLA Showcase to experience some of them! We have been working hard to ensure that we bring you value and can help you build better retail through:

• Connecting new tech providers to members at the newly created Tech Alley

• Continuing to meet with the government to help build a better economy and drive business through the LBM Industry

• Improving upon our education course offerings and bringing our learning program up to date

• Supporting our members with their onboarding with our newly built WRLA Academy

As we continue to remove roadblocks to building better business, we encourage you to meet us halfway and join us at the 2023 Showcase to build up your connections, build your staff team through training and education, take advantage of deals that will help set you up for the upcoming year and support the industry association that continues to support you!

Liz Kovach PRESIDENT, WRLA