Each of us has his/her own favorites but industry-wide you’d have to vote for (in random order):

Blu-Ray Defeats HD-DVD

The Rise of Netbooks

The Disappointment of VISTA

Google’s Android Entry

For RETAILVISION MIDDLE EAST, Bob was asked to present a 30-minute speech  for Power Retailers in the Middle East on what is coming in retail in the near future. Much of the work that Bob did seems to apply to European retailers and distributors as well.

BUT, to take full advantage of this free PowerPoint, you'll need to also read the NOTES underneath the Power Point. There Bob shows you his source material, provides links to manufacturers, and further explains why the product or trend is significant. You can download this Presentation for free from SlideShare Continue reading...

There’s a great tradition in retail called the “A/B Comparison” display. You remember it from stereo days: you put up one set of loudspeakers (A) and demo against them with (B). It’s one of the most effective ways to sell a customer.

In that tradition, some Best Buy stores in USA maintain a display of two identical HP computers. One screen is cluttered with eBay, Quicken, AOL, Yahoo etc. The other is entirely free. Best Buy staff use this display to warn buyers that gratis software can slow their PCs-- by as much as 25-30%.

And for only $30, Best Buy will get rid of the very software that the PC maker thought you the buyer might want or need. The only problem with Best Buy’s newest value-added (or value-subtracted!) service is that software makers pay $2 to $10 to load up makers like HP and others.

If you entered from the South entrance, there was something new this year at IFA Berlin. Berlin’s famous brown good show turned white, white as a ghost.

The ghost of appliances, that is. This year an exclusive exhibition area measuring 25,000 square metres in Halls 1.1 to 4.1 was earmarked for HOME APPLIANCES@IFA.

There’s this photo of Miss IFA precariously perched on a Siemens appliance and what a perfect visual analogy. The relationship between white goods and brown goods has been tenuous at best throughout the years. And Miss IFA won’t be comfortable for the long term on that appliance either.

The ghost of major appliances has haunted consumer electronics ever since an appliance store first decided to add a new product called TV to its product mix. Appliance/TV was one channel, radio/TV another and furniture/TV was a third.

The evolution of high fidelity (it grew out of the furniture console and into self-stacking separates) and TV (it, too, left the wood-grained box for a future separated from furniture) put distance between white goods and “brown goods” channels. And eventually hi fi dealers were born and then video stores and computer dealers. The specialty channels were born and thrived.

Some of those channels eventually added back major appliances, but normally when you see the two physically together…they mix like oil and water.

Brown goods usually require high technical knowledge for sales and service, skills which need to get more complex with time. While white goods need more practical skills and "brute force" to manipulate the devices and heavy tools required to repair them.

IFA cites their motivation as their research showing home appliances fall in same Top 10 lists for consumer purchases as LCD TVs and personal computers.