Location: Great Room Lobby, Floor 2, W Hotel

Meet the Yarn Market News team and receive your registration packet and gift bag.

Location: Great Room 1, Floor 2, W Hotel

Don your party gear or hand-knit/crocheted attire and join us for music, appetizers, open wine/beer bar, and premium networking. Be sure to wear your nametag!

Location: Great Room Lobby, Floor 2, W Hotel
Breakfast starts at 7:30 a.m.

Location: Great Room 1, Floor 2, W Hotel

Location: Great Room 1, Floor 2, W Hotel

Does your shop have too much inventory sitting on the shelves and not enough money to pay the bills? Are you left with an abundance of seasonal merchandise at the end of the holidays?

All too often, needed cash is sitting on the shelves as excessive inventory. And with competition getting tougher and customer dollars getting tighter, you cannot afford to allow slow-moving products to take up your valuable space.

Smart retailing begins with an open to buy dollar program. Although most yarn retailers are familiar with open to buy, many do not fully understand or utilize the system in their sales and inventory planning. In Creating Positive Cashflow with Open to Buy, you will learn why and how open to buy can give you a competitive advantage as you begin creating a positive cashflow.

Location: Great Room Lobby, Floor 2, W Hotel

Location: Great Room 1, Floor 2, W Hotel

In How to Strike a Better Deal: Fearless Negotiating for Small Business Owners, Jeanette Nyden takes into account the unique needs of yarn stores by teaching retailers how to handle any negotiation, regardless of situation or size. From suppliers to your landlord, Nyden shows you how to apply her core negotiating principles with your natural communication talents to build rapport and minimize conflict. With these valuable skills in hand, retailers will be able to handle vendor negotiations, contracts, supplier arrangements and other negotiations with greater effectiveness and a positive effect on long-term relationships.

Location: Great Room Lobby, Floor 2, W Hotel

A. TBD

Location: Great Room, Floor 2, W Hotel

B. TBD

Location: Studio 1, Floor 2, W Hotel

Location: Great Room 2, Floor 2, W Hotel

Location: Great Room 1, Floor 2, W Hotel

Do you feel as though issues at your shop or business have taken over every aspect of your life? Are you taking work home every night? Are you in the store even on your “days off”? Has your business become your life and you are feeling burnt out as a result? Business coach Joe Grushkin assists owners of small and medium-sized businesses to understand and assess their personal and professional objectives. Get a Life! offers proven ways to delegate to and manage employees, understand what your true goals are and focus on your more rewarding personal objectives. His unique perspective and creative and innovative concepts have resulted in his clients driving their businesses to new levels - and improving their personal lives at the same time.

Location: Great Room Lobby, Floor 2, W Hotel

Location: Great Room 1, Floor 2, W Hotel

Covering key methodologies used in brand development across a host of various markets, this seminar will provide an overview on what successful brand strategists consider when building out brands. Topics will include naming and alliteration, copywriting, imagery, packaging, public relations, shop exteriors and interiors, employee apparel and presentation, point of purchase, signage, logo, customer service, identity and other triggers. When executed correctly, such triggers greatly contribute to mirroring a brand's aspirations, rather than being a hindrance to it.

Creating a successful business model today demands delivery of a holistic, engaging and memorable message via positive user experience. By conveying intrinsic attributes that each brand possesses in its DNA, shop owners will better understand how to meet consumer expectations through fulfilling a brand's promise.

Location: To be announced! (Within walking distance of the W Hotel.)

Keynote Address
It Takes a Village to be a Success: New Paths and Possibilities for Yarn Store Retailers
Cinda Baxter

Today's economic climate has become challenging for most companies, regardless of their size. As a result, yarn store retailers have a choice: Look backward and dwell on what got us here, or look ahead to new paths and possibilities. From social media to the viral growth of The 3/50 Project, there are myriad ways to engage customers and inspire them to support your store's success. Join Cinda Baxter as she shares strategies on how to light up your village.

Location: Great Room Lobby, Floor 2, W Hotel
Breakfast starts at 7:30 a.m.

Location: Great Room 1, Floor 2, W Hotel

Location: Great Room 1, Floor 2, W Hotel

As a fiber artisan, the choices you make for each artistic creation - the yarn weight, color and texture, as well as needle size - affect the final product. As a retailer, each choice you make for your store's environment - color, paint, textures, fixtures, lighting, layout - similarly affects the image you present and the way your business is perceived.

Knowing how to 'Tell Your Own Story' with the elements of your store environment will help you build a successful brand image and compete in a growing global market. Learn simple, cost-effective ways to maximize your visual impact by creating an environment for your business that envelopes your customers in your brand image. Wherever you sell products- brick & mortar, online, shows-you need to stand out. In this seminar, you'll learn how to set yourself apart from the competition and 'Tell Your Own Story' successfully.

Location: Great Room Lobby, Floor 2, W Hotel

Location: Great Room 1, Floor 2, W Hotel

While our sense of sight is a great motivator in the shopping experience, the actual impulse to purchase involves several senses at once. And if experts agree that product impressions are made in no more than three seconds, how do you hook a customer in such a short amount of time? Linda Cahan teaches sensory merchandising techniques designed to introduce practical ways of adding multiple emotional experiences to your retail environment.

In this seminar, you will develop greater awareness of the impact of sensory design and understand how the senses work together to form a memorable shopping experience.

This presentation will introduce information about all five senses and touch on the sixth, most illusive sense.

Location: Great Room Lobby, Floor 2, W Hotel

Location: Great Room 1, Floor 2, W Hotel

Retailers from the audience share photos of window displays, in-store signage, merchandise tables, checkouts and more to our panel of experts for on-the-spot advice.

Location: Great Room Lobby, Floor 2, W Hotel

Location: Bus will arrive on 4th Avenue, outside main entrance to the W Hotel. Please have your ticket ready.