National Retail Federation

National Retail Federation
Formation	1911
Type	Retail trade association
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Location	United States
Chief Executive Officer	Matthew R. Shay
Website	www.nrf.com

The National Retail Federation (NRF) is the world's largest retail trade association.^[1] Its members include department store, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet, and independent retailers, chain restaurants, and grocery stores. Members also include businesses that provide goods and services to retailers, such as vendors and technology providers. NRF represents an industry that contains over 1.6 million U.S. retail establishments with more than 24 million employees and (2005) sales of $4.4 trillion. NRF is also an umbrella group that represents more than 100 associations of state, national and international retailers.

Divisions

Major divisions of NRF include:

• Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS), an organization with international membership, which works to reduce the costs of technology by helping the implementation of technology standards. ARTS has four standards: The Standard Relational Data Model, UnifiedPOS, ARTS XML and the Standard RFPs.
• The National Council of Chain Restaurants (NCCR), the leading trade association exclusively representing chain restaurant companies, which has existed since the early 1960s.
• Retail Advertising & Marketing Association (RAMA), a trade association of marketing and advertising professionals working at retail companies, and their counterparts who work at advertising agencies and media and service-providers.
• Shop.org, an association of retailers who sell online.
• International Retail Federation (IRF), which serves the needs of retailers based outside the United States through networking events, education, products, services and other resources.

The NRF also has a research and education arm, The NRF Foundation (NRFF), a non-profit 501(c)3 organization created in 1981. It conducts industry research, develops education and workforce development programs, and promotes retailing as a career

Activities

• NRF publishes STORES Magazine, monthly, covering the entire range of interests of NRF members, and LPinformation Magazine (formerly LP&Security Trends), bi-monthly, covering loss prevention. STORES also publishes, annually, its Retail Industry Buying Guide and its Software Sourcebook.

• The organization regularly does sales projections. For example, for the Thanksgiving weekend in 2005, the NRF projected that sales would be 22% above the prior year.,^[2] based on a survey on Friday and Saturday of the weekend. A Wall Street Journal article after the weekend questioned that projection.^[3] By comparison, ShopperTrak RCT Corp., a Chicago market-research company with a different methodology, reported a sales decrease of 0.9% on Friday,^[4] and an increase for the weekend of just 0.4%.^[3] In July 2006, NRF predicted a substantial increase in back-to-school sales,^[5] and in September 2006 it also predicted a large increase in Halloween spending.^[6]

• For the fourth quarter of 2009, NRF reported spending $460,000 to lobby on a variety of issues, from apparel tariffs to consumer product safety.^[7]

• In April 2013, the NRF launched its “This is Retail: Careers, Community, Innovation” campaign, "a multi-million-dollar campaign to broaden perceptions of its industry beyond one of part-time jobs with limited advancement opportunities." Bill Thorne, SVP of communications at the NRF, pointed out: “There is a common misnomer that you can't advance in the retail field…we have to get people to understand that retail isn't only for college kids working part-time. It's a hard perception to change because people don't see beyond the cash register or aisles being stocked.”^[8] As part of the campaign, the NRF launched the ThisIsRetail.org website to showcase individuals who have fulfilling careers in the retail industry. Beginning in June, ioriginal content will be added such as industry news, retail case studies, and research to the site.

• In late 2013 David French, the NRF's senior director of government relations, said the organization would start distributing campaign contributions in Republican primary elections to oppose the Tea Party movement and adjust to the "changing environment on Capitol Hill" that has contributed to what he called "the three-ring circus that has transfixed Washington."^[9] “We are looking at ways to counter the rise of an ideological brand of conservatism that, for lack of a better word, is more anti-establishment than it has been in the past,” French said. “We have come to the conclusion that sitting on the sidelines is not good enough.”^[10]

Conferences

Each of the divisions of NRF has one or more conferences annually. In addition, NRF has an annual conference/convention. The 97th, in New York City in January 2007, had more than 15,000 attendees and 500 vendors.^[11] Attendance in January 2008 was 18,500; in January 2009 it dropped by 8%, to a total of 17,000.^[12]

Below is the complete list of conferences.

• NRF’s Annual Convention and EXPO, Retail's BIG Show
• Washington Leadership Conference
• NRF Global Supply Chain Summit
• NRF Loss Prevention Conference & EXPO
• NRFtech, IT Leadership Summit
• NRF Human Resources Executives Summit
• Shop.org Annual Summit
• Shop.org Online Merchandising Workshop
• RAMA CMO Summit

Leadership

In mid-March 2010, the NRF announced that Matt Shay, who had headed the International Franchise Association (IFA), would become NRF's president and CEO on May 10, 2010, replacing Tracy Mullin, who was retiring.^[13] Mullin joined NRF in 1976^[14] and became president in 1993.^[15] Shay joined the IFA in 1993 and was named president in 2004 and chief executive in 2007.^[16]

As of 2010, the NRF Board of Directors was chaired by Stephen Sadove, the Chairman of the Board and CEO of Saks Incorporated. His predecessor was MTerry J. Lundgren, the President and CEO of Macy's. Members of the board include board chairs, CEOs, and/or presidents from Crate & Barrel, L.L.Bean, Liz Claiborne, Petco, Saks, The Container Store, HSNi and other well-known retailers.

2009 merger with RILA

In April 2009, NRF and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) announced that they would merge.^[1] NRF has about 100 employees; and has been based in Washington, D.C. since it moved from New York City in 1993; it had been in New York for 81 years.^[17] RILA is based in Arlington and has a staff of about 30.^[18]

The process was expected to be completed by summer 2009, after both NRF and RILA went through a due diligence process. The boards of directors of both associations had to recommend the merger, and members of both groups had to approve it.^[19] The combined association was run during the transition by RILA President Sandy Kennedy. Kennedy said in May that she envisioned a smaller staff of about 75, down from 135 now employed by the existing associations.^[20]

In late June, the NRF and RILA announced that the merger had been called off.^[21] The decision was by the boards; members had not yet been asked to vote on the matter. "NRF and RILA will devote all resources to continuing the work they are each doing to address the serious issues that America's consumers and retailers are facing in today's economic environment," the groups said in a joint statement.^[22]

Retail Sales

The National Retail Federation releases figures on the sales for each Thanksgiving weekend.^[23]

National associations and members represented

The NRF has about 2,500 members, including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet, independent stores, chain restaurants, drug stores and grocery stores.^[1] Among the notable associations that are members of the NRF in its role as an umbrella organization are:

• American Booksellers Association
• Direct Selling Association
• Food Marketing Institute
• International Franchise Association
• National Association of Convenience Stores

References

External links

• National Retail Federation
• National Council of Chain Restaurants
• Association for Retail Technology Standards
• Retail Advertising & Marketing Association
• Shop.org
• Stores Magazine