Welcome to Retailing Today TV, the retail news channel for videos, slideshows and special reports designed to meet today’s multimedia lifestyle.

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John Kenlon Publisher Retailing Today Jkenlon@retailingtoday.com

Tim Craig Editor in Chief/Associate Publisher Retailing Today tcraig@retailingtoday.com

There was no shortage of product innovation at this year’s International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago. However, some of the most intriguing exhibitors at the show were non-product service companies anxious to bring together retailers and vendors. One such company, Alibaba.com, is a marketplace portal that could just change the way companies interact in the not-so-distant future.

Sustainability is everywhere, and the housewares industry is no exception. From responsibly sourced bamboo cutting boards to small electrics designed to conserve energy, the home is getting greener by the day. Yet sustainability was only one big trend at this year’s International Home & Housewares show in Chicago. New celebrity chefs, sleeker (and smaller) home coffee brewing solutions and, of course, a slew of examples of the next great must-have home gadget, were also among the highlights of this year’s show. The following is an overview of Housewares 08 by RT editors Tim Craig and Mike Duff.

Who would have guessed that Sustainability would have taken off the way it has? From LEED-certified buildings to earth-friendly SKUs, there’s not a piece of the industry that’s immune to ‘green retailing.’ That’s why Retailing Today made Sustainability to focus of its recent seminar in Bentonville Arkansas. The following is a series of video highlights from Beyond Bentonville: Best Practices in Sustainability.

Retailers and vendors alike converged on New York's Javits Center for the 97th annual NRF Big Show in mid January. Join Retailing Today Editor in Chief Tim Craig for a virtual tour of this year's show, including a look into the pioneering company's and products shaping the future of retail technology.

Who knows tech trends better than NRF? So we tracked down the asssociation’s vp of merchandising and retail operations, Dan Butler, and put him on the spot. Here’s what he had to say about the issues dominating this year’s show, including consumers and technology, the softening of the economy, and the increasing need for innovative in-store design.

With the ink barely dry on its newly penned deal with New England-based Stop & Shop, Modiv Media proudly displayed its latest version of the Modiv Shopper, a handheld in-store scanning device designed to facilitate grocery shopping. Powered by Motorola’s MC17 mobile computer, the “easySHOP” scanner system, which is how it is known by Stop & Shop customers, is a prime example of the type of product on display the the NRF show that marries state-of-the-art technology with cutting-edge point-of-sale marketing.

Just hours before the public announcement of its $8.5 billion purchase of BEA Systems (the third-largest software deal ever) Oracle executives were calmly addressing attendees at this year’s NRF Show. So what’s the message from this major market mover? According to general manager Duncan Angove, the key to success in today’s “very challenging trading environment” is to “think like a marketer and act like a merchant,” which is to say, emphasize customer “intimacy” over efficiency, make “emotional connections” to the consumer, and use “fresh ideas to create value.”