RetailVision A Best Buy For Attendees

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF.— Leading dollar-volume consumer electronics chain Best Buy is stepping into the spotlight at RetailVision's Fall 2002.

Best Buy will be on stage at RetailVision's Retailer Power Breakfast, Sept. 11, 7:30 to 9:30 a.m., when James Damian, senior VP/visual merchandising and store design, will honcho a vendor presentation called "Complexity Simplified: Enhancing the Customer Experience in the Digital Age."

Damian will share insights into retail store experience, some of which helped make Best Buy No. 1 in product sales on the TWICE Top 100 CE retailers. Since joining the company four years ago, Damian has reinvented the store design three times, taking the CE giant from a promotional mass-market shopping environment retailer to an experience-based specialty retailer.

The biannual RetailVision event, which will be held here at the Century Plaza Hotel and Spa, Sept. 10-13, also will have Best Buy on board for its Retailer PowerViews, a vendor-only session on Sept. 11. Best Buy's Bob Gunderson, merchandise manager, will be on hand for a 10:10 to 10:40 a.m. presentation on that day.

Part of RetailVision University, PowerViews is a format presented by retail executives who educate vendors on how to plan programs, sell products and build brand with the most powerful retail chains in the industry.

Other Sept. 11 Retailer PowerViews participants include Dell's Michael Berman, product marketing manager, 9 to 9:30 a.m., and Office Depot's Bryan O'Connell, divisional marketing manager for technology, 9:35 to 10:05 a.m.

Also scheduled are Zones' Dan Freeman, VP/channel marketing, and Brent Swank, director of merchandising for software, 10:45 to 11:15 a.m.; and Micro Center's Kevin Jones, VP/merchandising, 11:20 to 11:50 a.m.

ChannelViews presenters on Sept. 12 include Mike Hagen, president/CEO of ARS, 8:45 to 9:15 a.m.; Dave Martella, principal of Trinity, 9:30 to 10 a.m.; and Adam Levin, president/founder of Levin Consulting, 10:15 to 10:45 a.m. These sessions also are vendors-only.

ChannelViews, where industry-leading consultants share their knowledge and experience, cover a wide variety of topics, developed to educate the vendor community about how to maximize sales and return on investment.

Palm will be doing a World Premiere presentation, highlighting its partners, which produce software and accessories for the Palm platform. The session will take place Sept. 11, 11:30 a.m. to noon.

World Premieres are theater-style presentations where vendors talk to large groups of retailers. Vendors launch new products and/or programs, whereby retailers are presented with the latest products, services, channel programs and partnership opportunities in their corresponding product categories. Participation offers all attendees accelerated time to market.

Another new twist for the Best of RetailVision Awards Night, Sept. 12, 8:15 to 9:30 p.m., is the fall 2002 debut of a "murder mystery," called, "Who's Making a Killing at Retail." Here, participants will find out who "dunnit" as well as who "wunnit."

RetailVision, which is organized by GartnerGroup, will once again hold one-on-one sessions at what it calls The Meeting Place. Scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 11, from 1 to 7 p.m., and Thursday, Sept. 12, from 1 to 6 p.m., these sessions bring together vendors and retail buying executives for prescheduled meetings — that is RetailVision's tradition of building relationships and conducting business.