Feb 7, 2019

Retail Renaissance NY NOW Winter resonates with retailers

Repositioned at the center of the renaissance sweeping the retail market, NY NOW Winter 2019 set out to recreate itself as the most important resource for better or premiere retailers.

The retail renaissance has seen the meteoric rise of independent retailers who present an inspirational discovery experience to buyers. These stores feature unique innovative and distinctive items displayed in a creative, ever-changing format that delight Millennial and Gen Z buyers hungry for a different, better in-store shopping experience. These premiere retailers are growing 40x faster than “balanced” retailers.

E-commerce, still less than 9 percent of retail sales has become all about “chore” buying, while “cherish” buying is surging ahead with thousands of net-new stores coming into the market, as balanced retailers leave it.

NY NOW is positioned as the place to find unique and distinctive products and to learn how to best create an inspirational experience as demonstrated and taught by those that do it best.

This year the market introduced over 700 new designers and producers exhibiting, plus over 168 new product submissions into our destination: new Product Display.

Retailers reveled in NY NOW’s Transcend Experience; spaces designed by Robin Baron, Francis Toumbakaris, Vanessa Deleon, Bjorn Bjornsson, Elissa Grayer, Kim Radovich and Charles Pavarini III composed beautiful presentations using exhibitor pieces and items contributed by major brands such as Lladró, Lalique, Baccarat, Roche Bobois, Zanotta and Christofle- from showrooms all over New York City.

Related: See photos from 2019 Winter NY NOW

Transcend Talks presented top CEOs, designers and leading retailers to hundreds of retailers and designers eager to discover the latest on in-store designing, social marketing, and design trends in packed floor sessions.

Holiday House @ NY NOW was a destination for thousands of retailers and designers who were thrilled by the compositions of top designers such as ParisGrant, Serniqua Dougherty, Robin Kramer, Rio Hamilton, Sara Touijer, Leslie Young and Melanie Roy, curated by Iris Dankner. The Holiday House reception on Sunday night was attended by hundreds who came to celebrate the several created masterpieces on the show floor.

The Lifestyle Collection’s new indie NOW feature attracted retailers who were quick to take advantage of unique never before seen fragrances and personal care products.

The newly co-located and fully curated National Stationery Show featured “Emerging Artists” where retailers could find over 50 totally new introductions plus 400+ better stationery product designers and producers, all ideal sources or products for their store to add to a successful buyer experience.

The combination of these dramatic changes made Retail Renaissance @ NY NOW a destination for retailers and designers—by the end of the first day overall attendance was up 34 percent over the previous NY NOW Winter event.

More importantly, NY NOW saw over 3,500 new premiere retailers who had not been to the market before.

Looking ahead to NY NOW Summer, expect even grander on-floor Transcend Experience spaces, an enlarged Holiday House, more Transcend Talks, a second addition of the National Stationery Show in the River Pavilion and the introduction of JA Summer, a co-located event featuring 400+ jewelry and fashion jewelry exhibitors- plus a major on-floor “Epicurean Kitchen” presentation featuring the culinary arts of Lidia Bastianich.

Dramatic change continues at NY NOW as the market continues to evolve to be the exhibition for the premiere independent retailer.