GMDC GM CONFERENCE 2006-06-19 (1)

DAN ALAIMO

ORLANDO, Fla. - Retailers should develop multi-department seasonal plans to leverage their company's product assets during peak seasonal periods, said consultant Gerald Friedler, based in Boston, during the GMDC General Merchandise Marketing Conference here this month.

Friedler and Jon Hauptman, vice president, Willard Bishop, Barrington, Ill., presented the GMDC Educational Foundation's newest study, "Seasonal Best Practices," an 80-page update of a topic GMDC first broached 10 years ago. "By developing coordinated departmental plans, retailers can create a unique niche in a highly competitive environment," Friedler told SN.

"There's a common saying that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I believe that in the competitive world that we are in, retailers need to look as much as possible at using those assets they already have and leveraging those as much as they possibly can," Friedler said.

"It makes sense to incorporate as many different departments as you can and products from across the store into the seasonal mix because then they will begin to grow and it will spin it even higher in terms of growth rates," said Roy White, the Pelham, N.Y.-based vice president, education, of the Educational Foundation of GMDC, Colorado Springs. "So being much more universal in your approach to seasonal is probably going to be a tremendous plus for every department that participates."