Ray Gaul, the director of global research at Kantar Retail, a consultant to suppliers such as Procter & Gamble, says of Variety, ???We tried to understand what they do, but they???re fairly black-hole-ish.??? Gaul says that his research department followed Variety for ten years, before dropping its coverage in 2007. ???They were struggling to open new stores,??? he says. ???A lot of these stores w