California Apparel News

LAS VEGAS—Signs of economic recovery, strengthening retail sales and a move to Las Vegas helped to drive record attendance at the March 22–24 run of GlobalShop, according to organizers and attendees.

“So many businesses shelved store projects because of the weak economy in the past few years,” said Doug Hope, director of GlobalShop, one of the largest trade shows devoted to store design. “There’s a pent-up demand for it now.”

More than 20,160 retailers visited GlobalShop, held at the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas. It was a 5 percent increase over 2003 and the highest attendance in the show’s 11-year history. Retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., The Home Depot Inc., Liz Claiborne Inc. and Mervyn’s shopped for new flooring, lighting and fixtures from 890 exhibitors—an increase from the 715 exhibitors at the 2003 show.

While most retailers interviewed at GlobalShop said they planned to expand and redesign their stores, few committed to ordering goods at the show. Joseph Abbati, senior creative manager with Hayward, Calif.–based Mervyn’s, characterized his visit as reconnaissance for Mervyn’s Fall 2004 and 2005 store redesign.

“We’re doing a lot of new fixturing,” Abbati said. “So we’re looking for new pieces, but we just ordered samples. We’re just doing testing.”

Norman Glazer, president of mannequin manufacturer Patina-V in City of Industry, Calif., did not expect to reap a windfall of business at the show. Marketing the brand was his most important objective.

“In the old days, if you had a show like this, you’d write a lot of orders,” he said. “It’s changed. Few buy on impulse.”

Glazer said most of the retailers come to learn about the product and then make purchases at a later date.

“The show did its job,” he said. “They drew the customer in, and they saw our product.”

While this year’s strengthening economy helped to convince retailers to pay more attention to store design, issues such as world politics and show location shaped past GlobalShops.

GlobalShop 2003 turned into a ghost town when war was declared on Iraq during the trade show, Hope said.

Attendance grew this year in part because GlobalShop owner VNU Expositions, based in Roswell, Ga., moved the event to Las Vegas. VNU commissioned customer surveys, and the overwhelming majority said they wanted to travel to Las Vegas for the convention, not Chicago, where GlobalShop had been held for its first 10 years.

The transition to Las Vegas was smooth, according to Bradley C. Williams, manager of signing and in-store environments for Atlanta-based Home Depot.

“It’s a good show, better than the past ones,” said Williams, who shopped for temporary signage for his stores. “There’s more depth of product, more content here.”

The products were an encyclopedic array of design equipment, ranging from flooring, walls and hangers to sound equipment.

Much of the show’s buzz attempted to forecast the next hot retail look. Jegrave;nelle Meyer, owner and buyer for Habit and The Shoe Zoo in California’s Orange County, scouted lighting vendors for her stores’ upcoming expansion.

“White’s been played out. The minimalist look has been played out,” she said. “I want to bring in more lighting and give my stores a warmer feel.”

According to Greg M. Gorman, principal of GMG Design Inc. of St. Louis, who conducted a “New Trends in Store Design” seminar, bright colors will be in vogue for most stores. However, he said, retailers are taking different avenues for their redesigns. New looks include:

bull; Retro Modern, which mixes up designs from different eras.

bull; Organic, which uses items from natural milieus, such as trees and flowers, to give shops a softer look.

bull; Calming environments, which feature soft colors and relaxation areas.

bull; Energizing environments, which have strong visual personalities communicated by edgy graphics and video screens.

If retailers obsessed about design inside GlobalShop, they also made Las Vegas their laboratory. Store clerks at the Fashion Show Mall, neighboring the Sands Expo, said they weathered an invasion of design geeks from the trade show.

“People came into the store to look at the fixtures, not the merchandise,” said Yasmin Salonga, a floor leader at the Cole Haan store. “But we don’t mind; it exposes the store to more people.”