NRF 2017 Trends Report Part 3: Extracting Personal and Professional ROI from your NRF Experience

This post represents part 3 of a series describing retail trends that emerged from the exhibit hall at Retail's BIG Show in New York last week. While part 1 and part 2 highlighted specific business trends and their potential impact on retail in 2017, this post will shed light on an easy and powerful way to extract even deeper value from the time you spent at NRF and beyond.

Small Gestures Make a Big Impact

Every year, the conversation on the show floor is dominated by talk of platforms, partnerships, technologies and implementations. And without question, obviously, there is value in those conversations. At the end of the day, it's why we go, right? It's why we, as vendors, punish our feet and we nurse our backs through three grueling days. It's why retailers make the long, arduous journey up and down aisle after aisle of the exhibit hall, patiently listening to us in meeting after meeting, as we promote our wares.

Amidst all that tech talk it can be far too easy for something far less technical, far less focused on business ROI, to get lost in the shuffle. It can be far too easy to overlook the opportunity to help the people of RetailROI help over 200,000 vulnerable kids around the world.

So Many Opportunities…

The irony? Paying attention to (and supporting) RetailROI, even if you only do so by participating in exhibit hall experiences that might have business value too, can lead to significant personal ROI. This year, numerous vendors designed booth experiences that incentivized people to have the tech talks they need to have and at the same time support RetailROI. Several vendors were offering "passport stamps" where every stamp resulted in a donation to RetailROI.

If you attended sessions while at the show, NRF donated $1 to RetailROI for every session evaluation form submitted through their mobile app.

In the Aptos booth, we assembled six "store windows" where each window was visually merchandised by a generous Aptos client who also donated the contents of their window to support a silent auction for RetailROI. Their donations (and awesome visual displays) encouraged attendees to eagerly bid on the showcased items, resulting in nearly $8,000 raised for RetailROI.

So Much ROI

In the third and final video we shot from the show floor, I talk more about RetailROI and I showcase a couple of the windows in our booth:

Check it out, and next year maybe you might find new ways to engage at NRF, support RetailROI and extract greater personal value from your NRF experience. I can't wait to talk to you then, about emerging retail technologies and the amazing stories of the people of RetailROI and the kids they help.

And if you can't wait until next year to hear more of the incredible stories of RetailROI, tune in to the Commerce of Caring podcast series, presented by Aptos. Each episode of the podcast describes the often heroic -- and always inspiring -- stories of individuals who have dedicated their lives to helping kids around the world.