Visitors are welcomed in Düsseldorf, Germany, from the 05^th until the 09^th of March at this year’s Euroshop. More than 2.400 exhibitors showcase their products, solutions and novelties across 18 halls.  For the first time the exhibition has been divided in seven areas of expertise: shop fitting & store design; POP marketing; lighting; visual merchandising; expo & event marketing; retail technology and food tech & energy management. All these components make up for a successful business. The Euroshop organizational team is expecting up to 100.000 visitors to come to the number one retail fair trade.

This year the main topic of the exhibition is clearly digital transformation, as it not only changes consumers shopping behavior but shifts organizational culture, communication and structure. In this rapidly changing time, consumers do not make it easy for the retailers, as they have to compete with the entire retailers on the internet. Consumers have access to all relevant information and no longer have the need to come to physical stores in order to see the physical products they would like to purchase. This poses a big challenge to retailers, not only do they have to increase their efforts in getting consumers inside of their stores, they need to provide them with an outstanding shopping experience.  For that the Euroshop offers great amounts of inspiration that cover all the consumers senses and provide them with an excellent customer journey.

E-Square highlights

One interesting topic is the use of data to better understand one’s consumers. For example software that measures and evaluates time consumers have spent at different points in a shop. Through this the retailer is able to better understand what places are the so called hot spots and which places are underperforming. This enables the retailer to ensure a more convenient store layout. Another software ‘Pygmalios’ uses cameras inside of shops to understand the shoppers state of mind and age on which they can base their sale strategy.

Light not only ensures the focus of consumers on certain products in shops, the company ‘Smartpixels’ creates augmented retail experience by using projectors to showcase colors and textures in 3D format on an blank product. Through this consumers can customize their products in real time and the retailers enrich their shopping experience.

Price tags or shelf displays are increasing their abilities. They no longer only show the price, but also relevant product information, as well as real time product availability. Through the flashing ability, the retailers and consumers can also make sure to find products they are looking for.