2012 100 - Networld Media Group

WELCOME
to the 2012 edition of
the Retail Customer Experience Top 100, sponsored
by Motorola!
Once again, our team of retail experts sat down to
identify the hundreds of trends, technologies, brands,
strategies and people that are having an impact on retail.
They then assigned them numerical votes based
on their influence and impact on customer experience,
and the resulting rankings are collected in the
document you’re now reading.
This year’s Top 100 highlights how very different retail
is today from just a few years ago. Look at the top two
on the list — Amazon has turned bricks-and-mortar
retail on its ear to the same extent that Apple gutted
the retail music industry. Social media remains a huge
influence, even as it remains a moving target that retailers
are trying desperately to figure out. Last year’s
No. 1 — the economy — is still in the top five, and still
casts a shadow over everyone and everything beneath it.
But there is a new air of optimism in retail, and we
can see hints of that in the list as well. Tiffany, Neiman
Marcus, Nordstrom all in
the top 30? And multichannel
and m-commerce initiatives,
which have been talked
about for years, are actually
starting to happen in meaningful
numbers.
Joseph Grove, executive editor
josephg@networldmediagroup.com
James Bickers, senior editor
jamesb@networldmediagroup.com
David Henry, contributor
Jan Shrode, designer
There has been a lot of fear
and uncertainty in retail these past few years, and
more than enough “sky is falling” blog posts about
how everything is changed and nothing will ever be
the same, retail is dead, the kids these days only buy
things online, yadda yadda yadda. Those kinds of articles
certainly get a lot of page views – which of course
is the point – but they don’t really add anything meaningful
to the conversation. We present this Top 100
in the hope that it starts any number of meaningful
conversations with your team.
James Bickers
Senior Editor
Retail Customer Experience
Tom Harper, publisher
tomh@networldmediagroup.com
Kathy Doyle, senior vice president sales
and marketing
kathyd@networldmediagroup.com
Scott Slucher, account executive
scotts@networldmediagroup.com
Top 100 2012 ©2012 Networld Media Group. 13100 Eastpoint Park Blvd., Louisville, KY 40223. (502) 241-7545. All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced without the express written approval of the publisher. Viewpoints of the columnists and editors are their own and
do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the publisher.
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