War, Retail & Distractions

Best Buy's Brad Anderson pinch-hit for me with a column in our last issue (Thanks Brad), so it's been a month since I sat down to write this column. With all that has gone on in the world it doesn't feel like a month since I wrote my last Viewpoint. It feels like a year. I guess that's just another by-product of war.

Still, the signs of spring in the U.S.A. have bloomed in the past month. The Oscars came and went. March Madness filled the airwaves with basketballs. And the surest sign of the season, baseball's opening day came and went. They passed before the American public with muted enthusiasm at best.

We are preoccupied. We are at war. Again. The best and brightest young men and women of our armed forces are a half-world away from home in harm's way. Again. They are there to take out another murderous dictator and his thugs before he can do more killing. Again. And once again innocent civilians are caught in the crossfire. Again, tragically, history repeats itself.

Thanks to the miracles of consumer electronics and computer technology we can watch this war at home from on our TV screens and via the Internet in real time. Embedded reports provide the play-by-play. With all this technology and inspired reporting of hundreds of journalists, the result still does not come close to conveying the horrors of war.

As average citizens we are told to live our lives as normally as possible, while the war goes on. Some have said that it's our job to do our jobs, just like our men and women in uniform are risking their lives doing theirs. It has crossed my mind that it may seem distasteful that we go to work like we always do, and worry about mere commerce, while our fellow citizens put their lives on the line for us.

So it is quite understandable if all of us — retailers, manufacturers, consumers and even business journalists — are distracted from everyday life and are anxious due to this war. This is certainly not the best environment to get shoppers into your stores. When you mix war with the continuing moribund economy, higher gasoline prices and threats of possible layoffs, things look bleak.

That being said, shopping has always been a distraction. To many it is entertainment. And luckily for this industry, when consumers want a distraction and want some entertainment, they at least window shop, if not buy, consumer electronics products.

In the dark days after Sept. 11 everything seemed to stop. All of us stayed home and watched TV. But, depending upon where you were in the country, a week, two weeks or three weeks after the tragic events, everyday life rebounded, along with shopping and retail sales. The fourth quarter of 2001 turned out to be a good one. So, there is hope that store traffic and retail sales will hopefully increase during the next few weeks and months.

That being said, what really is important, and what we all should hope and pray for, is that war in Iraq ends quickly, with a minimum of casualties on all sides, and with our country being victorious.