When my team asked me what I wanted the theme to be for our 2023 Retail Stars layout, the first thing that came to mind was “return to normal.” But that’s not quite right, is it? We may be in a post-COVID era, but whatever we thought was normal in 2019 will never be our reality again.
That’s not a bad thing. The world changes and evolves nonstop and a business is successful if it can change and evolve with it — we’re supposed to be striving for continuous improvement, right?
That is what I enjoyed about this year’s Retail Stars and where all the re- words came from in our headline and throughout (revamped, renewed, rewarded). Each of these companies has revamped or renewed their hot tub businesses in one way or another in the last several years — and are reaping the rewards for doing those hard things.
SpaRetailer has undergone its own transformation. While a lot of these changes are things our readers would have no reason to know about — like all the new software, processes and even people we’ve added — all of them have been made with the hopes of ensuring SpaRetailer continues to be a vital resource for the industry.
With that in mind, there are some new things you will be seeing from us in 2024. One of our pillars is building community within the hot tub industry — we don’t want our content to be static but to create engagement and conversations across the industry. One way that happens is on social media, but a new way for those connections will be through our regular webinars. This is not an earth-shattering idea, but if there’s anything we learned from countless Zoom meetings during the pandemic, it’s that relationships and education can be enhanced through online platforms. We’ve already been doing this through our Power Women program and have announced our succession planning series, but there will be more to come.
So my question to you is, what can SpaRetailer do for you? What topics, programs or education do you need? As always, we are here to serve.
Best,
Megan Kendrick, publisher