Don't Forget Specialty Retailers
By Steve Smith -- TWICE, 10/10/2005
For the second year in a row the online ballots have been counted, and TWICE is proud to present our Retail Excellence Awards.
Let me congratulate our winners and nominees and thank all of you who voted. Among the winners, Best Buy is worthy of note since it took Retailer of the Year and Best National Retailer honors for the second time in a row. During a time like this, when the technology presented and sold to consumers in both major appliances and consumer electronics is changing as rapidly as retail business models, just to be nominated is an award in itself.
As we have tried to remind everyone repeatedly since reviving the TWICE Retail Excellence Awards last year, the nominees and eventual award winners are not just measured on their total sales volume for a 12-month period. Criteria for winners include imaginative merchandising and promotions, innovative in-store or Web site design, knowledgeable sales personnel and service, along with success at the cash register and the bottom line. This year's group certainly meets and exceeds those standards.
Still, with any awards program there are plenty more who could have or should have been nominated. It is like the Major League Baseball All-Star team selection process: Each year there are always a handful of deserving players who had a great first half who either don't start or don't make the team at all.
In our case, more recognition could be given to specialty retailers, whether they are A/V or appliance experts. It's not like they have been overlooked. All you have to do is review the nominees and winners in the Regional and Independent Retailer of the Year award categories and you see plenty of venerable dealers worthy of note. But those retailers and others, many of them members of major buying groups, have led the way in being able to sell complicated products profitably, enabling consumers to enjoy new CE and major appliances, while making better than average margins for themselves and their suppliers. And not just for this week, this month or this year, but on a consistent basis for a long, long time.
During this decade of ever-changing digital technology in CE, and changing products and suppliers in the major appliance industry, this is no small feat. Their accomplishments were recognized recently in the now oft-quoted Consumer Reports survey on how independents effectively compete against larger national chains.
It is no wonder that major national and regional retailers have looked over their collective shoulders and in some cases are re-energizing their operations by doing what specialty consumer electronics and major appliance dealers have been doing for years. If it is true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the moves by major national and regional chains to become more like specialists is a bigger award that anything we at TWICE can present.
So kudos to all the TWICE Retail Excellence Award winners and nominees for 2005! And while we're at it, don't forget the specialty retailers, for being a fount of new retailing ideas and a reminder of the benefits of good, old-fashioned hard work. We certainly don't.
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