The first day of the Action Sports Retailer show in San Diego opened notably more somber than the ASR Fall show. The reduction in the size of the show is immediately apparent: the show occupies probably 60% of the floor space compared to the fall 2008 show. The mood in the seminars and panel discussions has been similar: gloomy, with a strong emphasis on basics.

At the first seminar, “Thinking Outside the Box: Staying Relevant in This Market” the four panelist returned repeatedly to marketing basics, admonishing retailers and brands to:

• Identify a market niche for the company
• Differentiate the company from its competitors
• Develop a vision statement and market position statement
• Review the store’s entire inventory and jettison products that are not performing
• Develop a connection to their customers and their community

The second seminar, “10 Things You Can Do to Improve Your Website”  told a similar story for online marketing: businesses need to be aware of basic website design, SEO and email marketing.  Those that do not will be at a significant competitive disadvantage. 

Several manufacturers and consultants talked about manufacturers’  frustration with retailers because too many retailers don’t manage their businesses well. Too few retailers have POS systems, understand inventory management and Open To Buy planning or have websites. The consultants and other commenters expect that many of these retailers will not survive the downturn, leaving the recovery to those retailers that have developed these basic business skills. 

The messages is that retailers and brands that will survive the downturn are those the have strong fundamental business and marketing practices, and all businesses would be wise to focus on the fundamentals now, before they run into trouble.

No Turn On Red, a retail industry blog, recently announced a very interesting page of tweets from many large retailers at http://www.noturnonred.org/twitter/. Here you can see retailers making sales, supporting customers, or, as in the case of HomeDepotCanada, talking to themselves.

Most of the retailers have a lot of “at replies,” which are a Twitter name with a “@” in front. This indicates that the retailer is sending a message to a particular person, although the message is public. This is a sign of a conversation, and it is strong indicator of a Twitter user who “gets it.” When I checked the page, HomeDepotCanada was just authomatically tweeting advertisements, and not many people were following. So, the very conversational wholefoods has 14,600 followers and HomeDepotCanada has only 116.

In addition to being an interesting list, behemoth retailers that aren’t out of touch with modern technology, this page also demonstrates the importance of responding to tweets, not just broadcasting them.