One of the most refreshing and invigorating takeaways from Everything Channel's RetailVision Fall show in San Diego is the upbeat and optimistic outlook for the critical fourth quarter holiday selling season.
Tim Herbert, the Consumer Electronic Association's senior director of market research, released hot-off-the-press research showing the majority of those polled in a recent CEA Advisory Panel survey believe holiday consumer electronics sales from retailers will meet or exceed expectations. "We have seen it time and time again—even when times are tough, consumers find it tough to cut back on gift giving," he said. That's an important message for solution providers of all stripes that might be thinking about how to counter the sluggish enterprise IT market.
 | STEVEN BURKE | |
| Can be reached via e-mail at sburke@everythingchannel.com. | ||
If you're looking for hot products to offer for the fourth quarter, Herbert expects strong sales of laptop computers, GPS devices and of course flat-panel TVs. The average home has only 1.5 flat-panel TVs, he said. "We're seeing some nice revenue boosts from consumers moving up to larger displays," he said. Herbert also presented new research showing business sentiment among CEA Advisory Panel members is on the rise. That's no small matter as it marks the first time that things have been looking up since the fourth quarter of 2007. Herbert said the CEA Advisory Panel research indicates the economy has leveled off and will improve in the first quarter 2009.
Some of the country's best and brightest retailers echoed the upbeat CEA survey sentiment. Albert Liniado, the co-founder and president of DataVision, a New York retailer with a large showroom in midtown, said he expects a "very big fourth quarter." Liniado sees customers increasingly going to the Internet to do research and compare prices and then coming into the retail location to buy the product. "That gives the customer the best of both worlds," he said.
The message for solution providers of all stripes is all systems are go to stock up for a big holiday selling season.
Do you think it will be a happy holiday market?
E-mail me at sburke@everythingchannel.com.
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