What a few days away can do for you

I'm on my way back from a week in Bermuda. Never been there until last week, always wanted to go. And the operative word was "go"--very little interaction with the business or any of the players in it.

Time out of the country, and away from the dull roar of the Everyday can often be illuminating. It was for me. I did a little thinking about the market and I have come home with some thoughts. To wit:

*Merchandise suppliers are becoming marginalized, if they aren't already. We're being reduced to purveyors of "stuff" and this is not a good thing. Between databases with tens of thousands of items to reverse auctions with multiple suppliers quoting the exact same items, those of us on the Merch side are under fire from all sides.

*The Reseller is King. Forget all this blather about how end-users are going to go direct and bypass the reseller--it's not gonna happen any time soon. There are too many relationships that need to be cultivated for the end-user to do it. And the Reseller now has options they never dreamed of having only a few years ago, whether it's retail sites, or "category killers" willing to grant access to their assortments.

*The "recovery" is on hold for 2010. The cold, hard reality is that budgets, the lifeblood of our business, were established last fall when things were really crappy. It's highly unlikely that we will see any significant opening up of the purse strings in mid year.

*The Supply Chain is under duress. There are all sorts of "issues" with getting product from the Far East. Prices are going up. Delivery times are extended. And freight is more expensive than ever. This will not go away in the next few months, if then. There's so much going on in China (currency, labor shortages, increases in domestic demand) that we will see more and more pressure on our ability to deliver product.

*"Experiences" are the New Black. It's no longer good enough to offer product. You now must offer an "experience" that mimics (or exceeds) that offered by retailers. It will get worse.

More later...


Pete