Honoring Winners During Tough Times

By Steve Smith -- TWICE, 10/13/2008

When we put together our editorial calendar for 2008 months ago, we never thought that TWICE's Annual Excellence In Retailing Award winners would be honored and profiled during a time of such overwhelming worldwide economic upheaval.

Our front page story on how the crisis is affecting our corner of the world — the electronics/appliance market — illustrates the challenges retailers in this industry are facing.

While the economy has been lousy this year, few predicted that Wall Street and stock markets worldwide would crash along with credit markets. And who would have thought our wonderful leaders in Washington would approve a previously unthinkable $700 billion "economic recovery" or "bailout" bill? The bill seemed to finally get passed because it is a national emergency during an election year ... and it was packed with enough pork to choke a pig.

So, during tough times maybe we really should highlight the successful retailers among us as a source of inspiration. Our congratulations go to this year's Excellence In Retailing Award winners Apple Stores, Audio Advice, Best Buy, hhgregg and Huppins OneCall.

All five have been honored for the performance they have given during the past 12 months that ended Sept. 30. They deserve it because if you think September was rugged, the rest of the year hasn't been a joy ride either.

Just about all year, retailers have told us that if you were a flat or a couple of points below last year's sales for the month, you were a hero. That's probably more accurate in the past few weeks than ever.

These retail award winners are different in type and in size. TWICE honors them for such universal retail qualities as innovation, merchandising excellence, store design and customer service, as well as market share.

I dare say that if the balance of this year and part of next are as tough as some economic pundits say, the qualities that these five retailers and many others embody can and will get them through the economic storm we are going through.

As for current market conditions, those retailers and distributors TWICE spoke to didn't pull punches. The custom-installation market is hurting. Store traffic for many is down. Yet HDTV is still bringing consumers to stores, and pricing, for HDTV and other categories, has not fallen to the basement ... yet.

What I'm waiting to see is the Annual CE Holiday Purchase Patterns study, which will be released by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) on Oct. 20 at its Industry Forum in Las Vegas. CEA's report usually proves to be pretty accurate which will give everyone in the industry something to look forward to, if the numbers are good, or to dread, if they are down.