RETAILERS FORUM MAGAZINE IN 30TH YEAR!

IT all started in the basement of a printing plant in Great Neck, NY. After graduating from art school in 1978, Martin Stevens worked entry-level positions as a graphic artist at newspapers and magazines throughout New York. In 1979, after his first marriage he decided to launch out with his own graphics arts company, housed in the basement of a printing plant in Great Neck, Long Island. As with any start-up, things were slow and Martin was barely grossing $10,000 annually as he built the business. Sometime in 1980, his free rescue cat Ralph got sick and needed expensive medical attention, which added to mounting credit card debt.

THE need for extra income was pressing and with no retailing history, Martin entered the flea market business as a vendor selling gifts and novelties. Rather than start with one location, Martin arranged for three different markets (very spread out) and worked one booth while his wife and an employee worked the two others. Martin recalls the hardest part of the flea market business was finding merchandise. There was no internet (1980) and no magazines for vendors. The only source of merchandise was a small area of the Sunday NY Times that had “Offerings to Buyers” where Martin sourced merchandise.

DURING the Christmas season of 1980, with a grueling 7-day work week Martin had the light bulb moment! After talking with many fellow vendors about how they source their merchandise he thought about a newsletter for flea market vendors.

WITH $100 and a lot of determination, Martin wrote and photocopied a sales letter that he mailed to wholesalers around the tri state area to convince them to try an advertisement in his new newsletter, Flea Market Forum. The initial printing costs for the first run would be $800 and distribution would be hand-done by Martin on the weekends at various flea markets. Martin mailed the letters and waited for the checks to roll in. Without the funding from the new advertisers the newsletter was not going to happen. So, there was a lot of anxiety.

WEEKS went by and ads came in to print the first issue, which was a 12-page newsprint magazine. May of 1981 was the first issue of the magazine and the rest, as we say is history.

WITH no competition and talent, Martin was able to grow the magazine every month, doubling the revenue for the first several years of the magazine. Eventually the graphic arts business took a back seat to the publication and as new technology came out, computers and the start of the internet, the small business had quickly grown into a multi-million dollar operation by the 1990’s.

FROM a small basement office space the company expanded twice until it settled into its corporate offices in beautiful Centerport, Long Island. The company has expanded over the years to publish two independent magazines, Retailers Forum (specializing in independent stores) and Swap Meet Magazine (servicing the flea market industry). In addition to the magazines, the company has over two dozen trade directories, search engines, a full service printing company as well as a marketing and sales company.

THE wholesale/retail industry has seen many changes over the 30 years that Forum has been publishing and one thing that has been consistent is Forum Publishing. Martin established the first magazine to connect retailers and wholesalers and has paved the way for many other fine magazines and websites who service the community.

Forum Publishing wants to thank everyone in the industry for their support and encouragement as they enter their 31^st year in the business. We invite all interested in our company to visit our main website: www.RetailersForum.com and view our latest issue as well as partake of our content.

FORUM PUBLISHING HONORED FOR 30 YEARS OF SERVICE AT NY VALUE MERCHANDISE EXPO

The New York Value Merchandise Expo honored Forum Publishing Company on Sunday, September 11, 2011 at their show in a special ceremony open to exhibitors and buyers. Martin Stevens, Publisher of Retailers Forum Magazine and Swap Meet Magazine was given a special award for 3 Decades of service to the wholesale/retail industry.

Forum Publishing was started in 1981 and began as a 16-page local NY newspaper named Flea Market Forum, geared towards flea market vendors. Within a couple of years the paper went national with a major expansion and in it’s eighth year spun off into two magazines, Swap Meet Magazine for flea market vendors and the original magazine became known as Retailers Forum and changed its focus to independent retail store owners and distributors.

Full video of the event can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES-sdffIC6o&feature=channel_video_title

VAT TAX MAY DESTROY RETAILING IN THE UNITED STATES!

Piling a European-style sales tax on top of the existing U.S. tax structure would immediately destroy 850,000 jobs and damage retail spending for years to come, according to an economic analysis commissioned by the National Retail Federation, a leading trade group.

The report studied the potential effect of a 10.3 percent value-added tax, or VAT, a form of sales tax applied at every stage of production. The tax is ubiquitous around the world, having been adopted in more than 130 countries.

NRF president Matthew Shay said the study is intended to push back against what he views as a rising tide of interest in the VAT in Washington, where policymakers are eager to reduce record budget deficits.

“Supporters claim a VAT is the solution to the nation’s economic ills, but nothing could be further from the truth,” said Shay, who represents an industry that has long opposed a value-added tax. “This report has found that a VAT would have negative economic consequences for most working Americans alive today.”

The study, conducted by Ernst and economic research firm Tax Policy Advisers, assumed a VAT would cover most consumer goods and services but exempt home sales, rent, groceries, medicine, health care, financial services and education to ease the impact on low-income families. Such a tax, they said, would raise close to $400 billion a year, a sum that would significantly reduce budget deficits projected to hover around $1 trillion over the next decade.

However, the economic consequences would be dramatic, Shay said, with 850,000 jobs lost in the first year alone. Retailers, such as those represented by NRF, would be among the hardest-hit sectors of the economy, losing $2.5 trillion in business over the first decade.

The overall economy would also suffer at first, the study found, with gross domestic product dropping slightly – by 0.2 percent – in the first year. However, the economy would benefit from a value-added tax by the 10th year, the study found, because “lower deficits and debt would have positive long-run effects.”

The report argues that reducing government spending by a comparable amount – $400 billion a year – is a preferable option for reducing deficits because it would boost economic growth by 0.1 percent in the first year and 0.7 percent in the 10th year. But cutting such a sum would be the equivalent of wiping out Medicare, and therefore politically difficult.

Shay said the NRF will submit the study to the bipartisan commission President Obama has appointed to develop a deficit-reduction plan. The commission is scheduled to issue its report in December. Shay said his group grew nervous about the value-added tax after seeing public comments from commission members, including co-directors Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson.

“We take this very, very seriously,” Shay said. “We think it’s essential that policymakers understand the ramifications of this proposal before they go any further into conversation about approaches they might take to reduce the deficit.”

Bowles and Simpson have declined to rule out a VAT, saying all options are on the table in the commission’s discusions. Bowles also said on Fox News in April that one could make “good arguments for a value-added tax.” But Bowles suggested that a VAT should be considered as an alternative to taxing wages, not as an add-on to the current system. And Simpson has said flatly, “You can’t do a value-added tax without dealing with the income tax.”

Commission executive director Bruce Reed laughed when asked about the prospect of the commission’s 18 members – including six GOP lawmakers – recommending a VAT. Under the commission’s charter, 14 members must agree for any policy to be adopted.

“The U.S. Senate got only 13 out of 100 members to support that policy,” Reed said, referring to an April sense-of-the-Senate vote. “It seems unlikely that we could get 14 out of 18.”

WHILE WE READ OUR IPADS, CHINESE FACTORY WORKERS COMMIT SUICIDE

Well, in America’s never-ending search for more profits through exploitation, a rash of suicides has broken out at the Shenzhen, China factory where ipads are being made. While we leisurely read our books on the $500+ devices, the Chinese assembly line workers (250,000 of them) toil to keep up with the production of the units.

In doing so, it appears that the stress and monotony of the job has caught up with at least ten of the plant’s employees, who committed suicide. Maybe if we delve into the working conditions we can understand things better. First off, conversation on the assembly lines is prohibited. Workers are given a 10-minute bathroom break every two hours, and the workers are yelled at frequently by management.

Sounds like wonderful working conditions. But, of course let us remember that these factory workers are lucky to be making the ipads because they are being paid much more than workers at other factories…$293 a month! Imagine, two months of round-the-clock work to even think about buying an entry-level ipad! Oh, they are treated real nice there!

The workers are put up in living dormitories as many as 8 to a room. The 1.16 square mile facility run by Foxconn has its own hospital and restaurants — everything you need to keep the workers on base. But let’s not think that the company isn’t being proactive when it comes to the suicides… we have learned that Foxconn has recently installed netting around the outdoor stairwells of the dorms to prevent people from jumping. Well done, problem solved! And, in the Corporate America way to resolve any problem — they will throw some money at it by increasing wages for the employees around 30%. Good deal.

Just another example of corporations squeezing profits on the backs of others. With two million ipads sold within 60 days, Apple has been seemingly able tobuy two workers for an entire month for less than the cost of one entry-level ipad. So, read your books, enjoy yourself this summer knowing that the nets will be there to catch the employees who assembled your reading device!

WAL-MART GOES INTO THE TRUCKING BUSINESS

Because enough is NEVER enough and Wal-Mart just has to find additional ways to squeeze suppliers and retailers, they have announced that they are looking to enter the transportation business.

With its over $408 billion in sales for last year, they have plenty of clout and seem to be using it to tell their suppliers that they want to chauffer their own goods from the suppliers to their stores. Needless to say, if the suppliers were making a small margin in shipping and logistics, that will be gone. And think of all those unemployed truck drivers and closed trucking companies. BUT, it gets even better…

With Wal-Mart doing their own deliveries, they will have their own fleet of trucks and drivers (think about minimum wage workers!) and because one good Wal-Mart turn deserves another, they are also telling suppliers that they will now need to REDUCE costs of goods by as much as 6%, even though suppliers feel the real number should have been half of that!

So, the giant who has swallowed up many of our small businesses in communities, strangled suppliers with penny-pinching pricing, is now going after the transportation industry. It’s all about reducing their expenses so they can keep rolling back their pricing, while thousands of truckers around the country may stop rolling completely or, my guess is that they will be forced to work for the Wal-Mart wage… which from what I understand is not a living one!

So, consumers, go save a nickel and dime at these greedy mega-stores while your neighbors lose their jobs, independent retailers struggle and wholesalers get pinned to the wall. All so that you can save a nickel and Wal-Mart can make$408 billion!