When it is published in mid-February, Housewares TrendTracker 2008 will cost $999. Reserve your copy now and you’ll qualify for the special pre-publication price of $750, a savings of $249! But hurry, the special pre-publication pricing is only good until Feb. 10. To reserve your copy of Housewares TrendTracker 2008 , click here.

USEFUL TOOL

Don’t Waste Staff Time Creating and Updating Competitive Matrices; Let Retail Eye™ Do the Work Instead

Retail Eye™ is designed with time-pressured suppliers and retail buyers in mind – suppliers and buyers alike have a need to know what their customers and competition are up to. Retail Eye™ is a competitive matrix that provides detailed information on individual product categories at a dozen major U.S. retailers. Each retail matrix includes a photo image of every SKU, along with brand, model, features, and retail price.

Competitive matrices are important analytical tools for companies seeking to identify opportunities and pinpoint where they need to be more competitive. Housewares manufacturers who currently do competitive matrices in-house know that gathering and updating the data is a tedious time-consuming seemingly never-ending task. While it is absolutely necessary information to have, there is a cost to doing the competitive matrices in house: the time marketing or sales staff spends creating and updating the matrices is time they cannot spend on actually making use of the data to identify opportunities.

The purpose of Retail Eye™ is to give busy marketing and sales execs the best of both worlds: It keeps them informed about what’s on retail shelves without having to devote hours of time to creating and updating the information.

There are currently nine product categories. Categories include coffeemakers, irons, hand mixers. blenders, toasters, waffle bakers/sandwich makers, indoor grills, food processors, and cookware. More categories will be added in 2008.

Retail Eye™ currently audits eleven retailers including Linens 'n' Things, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Target, Wal-Mart, Sears, JCPenney, Macy's, Kohl's, K-Mart, Lowe's, and Home Depot.

The retail matrix will be updated twice a year, once in mid-to-late October when the store sets are in place for the holiday and at the end of April when the sets are in place for Mother's Day.

I am thinking of adding Retail Eye™ to the products and services that my company offers to housewares manufacturers. Before I proceed too far into the planning, I want to find out if this new service is needed by manufacturers in the housewares industry.