ETD: 824 Exhibiting at Trade Shows; Defending Wal-Mart; Spam,
Hackers & New Browser
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post at gapent.com
Thu Oct 7 03:12:24 GMT 2004
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0824 October 7, 2004
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem at gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
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CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] Exhibiting at Trade Shows
[3] Defending Wal-Mart
[4] Spam, Hackers & New Browser
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
Our thanks to Quinn Halford, Editor-In-Chief of Gifts & Dec magazine for
alerting us to the new gift building in NYC. Merchandise Mart Properties
Inc. (MMPI), Chicago, announced its New York Gift Mart at 7 W. 34th St. (at
Fifth Avenue) in Manhattan. The mart (once the site of Orbach’s department
store) will occupy some 450,000 square feet of space on the upper floors of
the building. Su Hilty, former marketing v.p. at 225 Fifth Avenue, is
general manager of the New York Gift Mart, which is targeted to open in
time for the April 2005 tabletop market.
Patty Sachs has given us some additional tips when exhibiting at trade
shows. Excellent tips.
Here's an update on Verizon Wireless for us Global Road Warriors. They now
have a Tri-Band mobile phone (Samsung SCH-a790) that includes a SIM chip
for use on the GSM network, which means we can use it in Europe and many
other parts of the world. Finally! I bought one, and when let you know
how it works when I travel.
I was quite shocked to see the numbers of junk that travel the Net. McAfee
sends out a newsletter (sales blurb), but I found the stats quite
fascinating.
Look at the new Firefox browser. It just may replace I.E.
While we all know WalMart is number 1 in the world, who is number 2? See
"Defending Wal-Mart" below.
79 days until Christmas. What are you doing this year to increase business?
Tell us about your business which will remain for posterity at
our "Members: Who Are You?"
site. http://etailersdigest.com/resources/members/index.htm And we have a
form there for you to tell us about you. As I said when I first proposed
this idea, we have "known" each other for a long time, yet we often don't
know anything about each other. So, tell us who you are and what you do.
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, Ltd.
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] Exhibiting at Trade Shows
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As a veteran trade show producer, exhibitor and attendee my five favorite
pieces of advice for an exhibitor are;
1. Establish if the attendee makes the decisions...if they say "no" gently
move them along with an "enjoy the show" greeting.
2. Keep your "A" giveaways under the counter to give to serious
buyers...keep inexpensive giveaways on top for all to pick up.
3. If you are having a drawing, it should only be for your products or
services, not "everyone wants" items like electronic goods.
4. Never sit down in your booth...better to perch on a stool and if you
must sit, have a bar-height table.
5. NEVER read a book or magazine while you wait for attendees to stroll by.
With the cost of exhibiting in a trade show being quite significant, every
minute counts and as George mentioned, be sure to sell or at least promote
your products or services to other vendors. They could be your next
customer or refer your next customer--or both.
Always smile and have fun, too--this attracts people.
Patty Sachs, trade show advocate
InstantPhotoFrames.com (good at trade shows...)
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[3] Defending Wal-Mart
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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is on track to sell close to $300 billion of
merchandise this year, more than four times as much as the next biggest
retailer, Carrefour SA of France.
Wal-Mart's cash registers now ring up 8.5% of all non-auto-related retail
sales in the U.S. The world's largest seller of everything from dish
detergent to diamonds, Wal-Mart projects it will have opened close to 500
new stores this year, bringing its total to more than 5,000 world-wide. And
it expects to open another 500 or so next year.
But when Wal-Mart's chief executive officer, Lee Scott, describes the
discounting giant, he simply says, "We're a pretty good company."
Which is part of the corporate culture since the company's founding 42
years ago. The retailer's insatiable appetite for low prices has allowed it
to dominate one business after another: groceries, toys, consumer electronics.
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart also has been coping with the sudden slowdown this
summer of consumer spending, as oil prices spiked, job growth slowed and
wages remained stagnant. Just yesterday, the company's chief financial
officer said that Wal-Mart's fiscal third-quarter earnings would "most
likely" fall on the lower end of its earlier forecast of 52 cents to 54
cents a share. Still, Mr. Scott told analysts that Wal-Mart was optimistic
about the holiday season, and he predicted a strong finish to the year.
"Twenty percent of our customers don't have checking accounts and live
paycheck to paycheck," said Mr. Scott. "This fuel tax is being felt through
the lower middle class, which also is heavily in debt. If 100 million
customers [Wal-Mart's weekly customer count] are spending an extra $10 a
week on gas, that's $1 billion in revenue that no longer exists.
People are still buying deodorant, shampoo, the low-margin items. But we're
missing the upside, the high-margin discretionary items -- toys, barbecue
grills, the items that are hanging at the checkout, like 35-millimeter
disposable cameras. We think this is going to go on until we get fuel
prices back down and a more positive consumer attitude. Unemployment is not
that high historically, but people are worried about jobs."
"We have a phenomenal toy business and our profits are exceptionally good.
It's one of the highest margin businesses. We say we sell for less, which
means if a competitor's prices are lower, we will drop our prices, even if
it means below our cost."
Lot's more detail at...
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109700309333336806,00.html
+++ [Moderator's Comments] +++
While we all know WalMart is number 1 in the world, how many knew Carrefour
SA of France was number 2?
George
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[4] Spam, Hackers & New Browser
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Interesting stats from McAfee. The Net just ain't what it used to
be! 804,548,973* Viruses blocked by McAfee® VirusScan® over the past 12
months (as reported by VirusScan® users opting into McAfee's World Virus
Map Reporting. Actual numbers for all users will be even
greater). 2,356,379,550 hacker attacks were blocked by McAfee® Personal
Firewall Plus over the past month (significant events recently reported to
HackerWatch.org). 12,400,000,000 Number of daily spam emails delivered to
inboxes, as recently reported by Spam Filter Review.
Many folks believe we need a new browser that is more secure and will stop
a lot of the viruses and other issues with the Net. In an article in
Forbes, they compare Internet Explorer Vs. Firefox. For the first time
since the late '90s, when Redmond quashed Netscape, Microsoft has some real
competition.
Alternative browsers have been around for years, including Netscape, which
was long ago absorbed by the Time Warner conglomerate. The popular open
source browser Mozilla is based on Netscape, a program called Opera has a
following, and Apple Computer has its own browser, dubbed Safari.
But there's a new browser from the makers of Mozilla, called Firefox,
that's getting lots of attention--and not just from the geeky set. The
Mozilla Foundation open source project, which is funded by Time Warner,
IBM and Sun Microsystems, launched Firefox version 0.9 on June 15. Firefox
1.0 is due out by early November.
"For the first time in a while, we're seeing real momentum behind a browser
other than IE," says Steve O'Grady, an analyst at enterprise software
outfit Redmonk, based in Bath, Me. "Consumers are starting to use Firefox,
and that has developers considering both platforms when they're building
Web sites."
Internet users began switching in earnest during the summer after several
security problems emerged with IE, which of course is built into
Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows operating system. Microsoft issued a patch
for Windows XP, that platform's most recent iteration, but users complain
that IE hasn't truly been updated since 2001.
"Starting this summer we've been getting between 200,000 and 300,000
downloads a day," says Mozilla's director of engineering, Chris Hofmann.
That's up from an average of about 70,000 daily downloads. Hofmann
estimates that Mozilla and Firefox browsers have a total of about 25
million users.
Firefox is lauded by fans for its download speed and a superior user
interface, and users say that its pop-up blocker is one of the best out
there. It offers tabbed browsing, which means that users can jump back and
forth between different sites with only one window open, and live
bookmarks, which show users the most recent headlines on their favorite
sites and lets them go directly to those articles.
But the biggest challenge facing anyone who wants to take on IE is that
most Web sites are built to work best with Microsoft's IE simply because
it's what sits on most PCs. That means some sites may not look quite right
or may not be accessible at all via a browser other than IE.
It's good news for Firefox and its fans that developers' attitudes are
changing, but reversing Microsoft's dominance remains a long shot. Both
browsers have had security problems and issued patches, and each has other
pros and cons. Herewith, a head-to-head comparison.
Details...
http://www.forbes.com/2004/10/04/cx_pp_1004mondaymatchup.html?partner=ecommerce_newsletter
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Links to follow
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GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.gapent.com/
Sarbanes-Oxley 2002 http://www.sarbanes-oxley2002.com
E-Tailer's Digest http://www.etailersdigest.com
ETD Archives: http://topica.com/lists/etailer/read
Prior to 29 Dec
1999 http://etailersdigest.com/archives/index.htm
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