Happy New Year! Since Nikki has already snagged the coveted Retail Trends for 2012 topic, I figured I’d take another tack – New Year resolutions. What are the resolutions we’d like to see our industry make (and even keep)? What are the things that might make us bigger winners than we already are?

1. Give Better Customer Service –Invited to a very fancy New Year’s Eve party, I had to buy an outfit that suited the occasion. I started at a specialty store, part of a small chain owned by a friend. While I did eventually find something I liked, it wasn’t a fun experience. The one salesperson on the floor was more focused on another client and the assortment was all over the map, both in size, fit and quality. When you’re spending $800 on a top, you sort of expect some kind of personal assistance. Somehow the $25 gift certificate I got on the way out didn’t quite make up for the poor experience.
   

   While I was out and about in the mall, I walked over to Nordstrom. NRF’s Big Show is coming and I need to freshen up my wardrobe a bit. The difference was amazing. The same one salesperson on the floor in my area was busy, but made sure I was finding what I was looking for, opened up a dressing room for me, and apologized profusely for not walking around with me while I shopped. When I told her “It’s okay, I’m pretty self-sufficient ” she replied “Well, that’s just not the way we treat people at Nordstrom. ” Hallelujah! And while there were none of the reported iPads on the selling floor, I was automatically offered an electronic emailed receipt by the associate. Another Hallelujah! I hate paper!

   My New Year Resolution: Never return to that specialty store. Always go back to Nordstrom.

2. Enough with the Thanksgiving Doorbusters Already – Not surprisingly (unless you’ve been in retail about 15 minutes) this holiday season sales took a perfect reverse bell curve shape – in other words, big at the beginning, big at the end, and a huge slump in the middle. I found this report in the St Louis Dispatch, but I’m sure it was carried by many news outlets. I’ve said many times before we mostly just move sales around with those doorbusters, front-loading the sales and leaving us with the same insecurity we always have coming down to the final week. What we’re seeing is a new level of Markdown Chicken sophistication. Sure those doorbusters were in our planned gross margins – but how many of us backed down when traffic dropped off to nothing? ShopperTrak expected December 17 to be the second largest selling day of the year. Instead Christmas Eve was #2, and December 26 was #3 (hello gift cards and bargain hunting). How many panicked on December 18?
   
   I think we’ve just re-trained today’s value conscious consumer. Go early, go late, and the heck with friends and family….let’s go shopping!

   My resolution remains: avoid those doorbusters like the plague. I’ll report for you all, but I will never spend.

3. Recognize that Consumer Confidence is no Longer a Leading Indicator of Sales Performance – A batch of retail analysts (we don’t work for the same companies but are good friends) have an ongoing email dialog during the year. And we continually pondered how the holiday season was going to shape up. Most thought based on weak consumer confidence, it would be a tepid season at best. But I remained a believer in the consumer’s passionate desire to spend. Finally, even the TV pundits had to agree that consumer confidence is, at BEST, a trailing indicator for retail sales. It’s sort of like Eat now, for tomorrow we diet. The future may look dim, but those store windows and web sites are gleaming.
4. Stop the Creepy Practice of Re-targeting –A surprising number of retailers (you know who you are) grab the cookies generated when visiting their site and choose to remind you, in the middle of a Scrabble game on Facebook, about those patio cushions you looked at a month ago, or the camera you considered in late 2010. At best it’s irritating (the patio cushions long bought, and the camera on-hold) and at worst it’s downright creepy. Please. No one likes it at all. I promise.
   
   My New Year Resolution: Keep track of retailers that re-target me, and avoid making my next purchase from them.
5. Give More and Count Our Blessings – RetailROI, brainchild of the late Paul Singer of Supervalu and Target, and Greg Buzek of IHL Services, has really started to take off. Trips have been made to Haiti and Liberia, helping orphaned children to get food, educated and healthy. Perhaps other times have been financially better for most of us, but if you’re reading this, I suspect you’re still doing pretty well. Take another look at RetailROI, attend SuperSaturday (before NRF), and find a way to help support this great charity’s efforts.

Five resolutions are more than enough for any industry. On my personal list there is one more. I resolve to be the best retail analyst and human being that I can be. If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. I never want to phone it in. For one thing, life’s too short to be lazy, and for another, a life worth living is a life lived well. I think I’ve got a better chance of keeping that resolution than anything else.

Happy New Year everyone and I hope to see you at NRF’s Big Show.