News, Notes & Remembrances

In recent years, August has turned out to be buying group convention season for those suppliers who go on the circuit and visit with Brand Source/Associated Volume Buyers, Nationwide and MARTA. I traveled to Scottsdale to attend MARTA's get-together in the dry 104-degree heat of Arizona. (See story on p. 1.) Based on my conversation with executive director Warren Mann, several MARTA members and a few of the suppliers who attended, sales for the group this year have been about as hot at the desert weather. The meeting was held just days after Best Buy, RadioShack, Tweeter and Ultimate Electronics warned that summer sales slowed and it could affect their second half earnings. Some suppliers mentioned that maybe some nationals have more inventories than they expected, which was the reason for the cautious pronouncements. Independents in this business do sell plenty of appliances, and since housing sales and starts are still going up, white goods are popular. Or maybe the dip in sales for the nationals was due to the Wall Street scandals, which hit with full force starting in July. Those scandals and stock market shocks could be the reason for the lowest consumer confidence numbers in August since November 2001. Let's hope that consumer confidence rebounds as the stock markets right themselves and the scandals become more distant, unpleasant memories as we enter the fall and holiday selling seasons.

If you watched the fourth and final major golf tournament of the year, the PGA Championship, two weeks ago, you might have picked up a CE angle at the event. While everyone loves Tiger Woods, sometimes you just have to root for the underdog, in this case Rich Beem, who surprised himself and everyone else. He won the PGA by one shot over Tiger. What's the CE angle? Well, during the CBS coverage of the event, commentators revealed that in 1995 Beem was so disappointed in his progress as a golf pro that gave up the game and began selling car stereos and cellular phones for Magnolia HiFi in Seattle. (Can selling CE products at retail really help cure your slice? I'll let you retailers answer that one.)

You certainly don't need TWICE to remind you that the first anniversary of September 11 will occur next Wednesday. All of us will forever remember where we were that day, and the myriad of feelings we felt when we heard the news and watched the tragedy unfold. Like our fellow citizens in Western Pennsylvania, the Washington area, and around the country those of us who live and work in New York City will never forget. That morning we didn't know what the next minute, the next hour or the next day would bring. And we certainly didn't know that two of our Reed Business Information colleagues who were based in Boston, Jeff Mladenik, CEO of eLogic, and Andrew Curry Green, business development director of eLogic, were on American Airlines Flight 11 and died that day. Our condolences and sympathy go to their friends, families and co-workers. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers as we honor them and all the other heroes who died on Sept. 11.