RetailVision Honors Fast Growth Retailers

Retail is a competitive and unforgiving industry. Retailers are forced to juggle vendors, products and customers, all while ensuring they hit their marks. It's not for everyone. This year, at RetailVision 2008 in San Diego, a show owned by CRN parent Everything Channel, we honored a number or retailers and one vendor that bucked the trend and saw rapid financial growth in the cutthroat retail arena.

Here are the winners of this year's Fast Growth Awards for retail excellence.

Robert Demarzo, Everything Channel's editorial director and senior vice president, introduces the winners of the Fast Growth awards for retail.

Micro Center took home the award for Retailer of the Year at this year's RetailVision, beating out a strong field of competitors for the honor. The Hilliard, Ohio-based technology and electronics retailer, with 21 stores nationwide, has changed the retail landscape by renewing its focus on the customer and ensuring it has a wide breadth of products to offer. Micro Center prides itself on making its visitors lifelong customers and holds the distinction of trumping the industry standard for sales over the life of the customer.

From 2005 to 2007 Micro Center grew its revenue 148 percent, according to industry estimates.

Micro Center's vice president of merchandising, Kevin Jones (pictured), accepted the award.

No other device maker can hold a candle to Nokia in the retail industry. The Finnish mobile device manufacturer boasts more than 350,000 points of sale globally and manufactures and sells more than an estimated 1.5 million phones per day. All the while Nokia dreams up new ways to excite and entice retailers, whether through its N-Gage gaming platform or its Ovi online services offering.

Recent statistics from Gartner show that in the first quarter of 2008 Nokia commanded over 45 percent of the global smartphone market, with sales up 25 percent year over year, dominating based on its variety of offerings which target different price points in the high-end and middle tier. For the second quarter of 2008 Nokia posted $19.8 billion (13.2 Euro) in sales, a 4 percent year-over-year increase.

Robert Pignataro, Nokia director of retail channel sales, accepted Nokia's award (pictured with Robert Demarzo, Everything Channel editorial director and senior vice president).

New Egg, which has transformed e-tailing with its massive offerings of online hardware and software, IT brands and a host of consumer electronics, took home a Fast Growth Award. New Egg's do-it-yourself approach and its attention to the various needs of the customer have earned the City of Industry, Calif.-based e-tailer roughly 3 million registered customers and have helped propel its revenue to a 46 percent leap between 2005 and 2007.

Accepting the award for New Egg is Barnard Luthi, vice president of sales and merchandising (pictured with Robert Demarzo, Everything Channel director and senior vice president).

DataVision, which took home a Fast Growth award, saw revenue spike 29 percent between 2005 and 2007. The company started out as a basic Manhattan-based mail-order company and quickly ballooned into the massive retailer it is today, opening its flagship 5th Avenue location in 1998. Today, DataVision is known through New York City as one of the top computer electronics retailers and has a global Web presence that has brought it unparalleled success.

Accepting the award is Albert Liniado, DataVision's president and co-founder (pictured with Steve Burke, Everything Channel editor/news).

PC Universe knows all about fast growth. The Boca Raton, Fla.-based online retailer received a Fast Growth Award at RetailVision for growing revenues 37 percent from 2005 to 2007. PC Universe took a different sort of attack on retail, first cementing its roots as a VAR and growing that business into a full-service multi-channel reseller of IT gear and other computer equipment. The 13-year-old company also offers a host of services and manages more than 1,000 corporate extranet purchase relationships, giving retail vendors the ability to target various sales channels and customer segments.

Gary Stern, PC Universe's CEO and co-founder, accepted the award (pictured with Steve Burke, Everything Channel editor/news).

ProVantage, a North Canton, Ohio-based direct marketing retailer, also took home a Fast Growth Award. The 24-year-old company has been catering to IT professionals throughout its history and has since added new segments to augment its IT products, including consumer electronics.

From 2005 to 2007, ProVantage saw revenue climb 45 percent, making it a true Fast Growth retailer.

Taking home the award for ProVantage is Michael Carioti, manager of marketing development (pictured with Robert Demarzo, Everything Channel editorial director and senior vice president).

Since being founded in 1999, Ritz Interactive, has been recognized as one of the Web's most successful retailers. Based in Irvine, Calif., Ritz boasts a host of photography gear, consumer electronics and even marine, boating and fishing items through its various Web properties that include RitzCamera.com, WolfCamera.com and BoatersWorld.com. Ritz has been ranked number 114 in Internet Retailer's 2008 top 500 and has hit number 17 in Internet Retailer's Computers/Electronics Category based on 2007 Web sales. Its revenues skyrocketed 56 percent between 2005 and 2007

Accepting the Fast Growth award for Ritz Interactive is Fred Lerner, president and CEO (pictured with Steve Burke, Everything Channel editor/news).

Here are the RetailVision 2008 Fast Growth Award winners (from left to right): Janice Pederson, product marketing manager, PC Universe; Albert Liniado, president and co-founder, DataVision; Michael Carioti, manager of marketing development, ProVantage; Kevin Jones, vice president of merchandising, Micro Center; Robert Pignataro, director of retail channel sales, Nokia; Fred Lerner, president and CEO, Ritz Interactive; and Bernard Luthi, vice president of sales and merchandising, New Egg.