Why did the European Paris Retail Week attract thousands of visitors?

The 4th international trade fair Paris Retail Week (PRW) welcomed all retail enthusiasts from 10 to 12 September 2018, and we were lucky enough to be part of it too.

Over three days PRW brought together around 35,000 professionals (exhibitors, speakers, partners, …), 800 participating companies and over 18,000 visitors.

The aim of our business trip was above all to take inspiration from foreign companies, get to know their technological approaches and options, and use that information to improve existing Neoship features and develop new ones. At the same time we wanted to pass on to our customers and followers the latest trends that will soon reach Slovakia too.

It was worth it :)

A valuable insight was certainly the finding that it is not only the e-commerce market that faces significant changes in the coming years, changes that will influence the way people shop and how customers are approached. It will mainly involve extensive collection of data about shoppers, processing it, digitalisation, automation of marketing tools and product presentation, as well as linking offline and online sales channels.

In the lines below you will learn more about the current trends presented at PRW: the omnichannel strategy, AI (artificial intelligence), virtual reality, augmented reality, holograms, logistics, and marketing and data possibilities.

The omnichannel strategy

Mentioned and presented several times at the conference. For those who may not know, the term omnichannel is defined as a multi-channel sales approach that gives the customer an integrated shopping experience. It is essentially a strategy covering several channels (combining online with offline) designed and steered to work together. The desired result for the customer is an experience that is at least as efficient as, or more pleasant than, if they had gone through the communication channels individually.

An example is the company Zoot, which uses several communication channels. Customers can choose products online in the e-shop, but can try the goods on in their „joy pick-up points“ and pay there too. Likewise, if the goods ordered in the e-shop do not fit, the customer can choose whether to return them with the courier or at a pick-up point.

AI (artificial intelligence)

Do you want to know everything about your customers as fast as possible? AI – artificial intelligence – will tell you.

A sales representative from the company Ultinous presented their camera-based system which, thanks to face scanning, finds out plenty of useful information about your customers: how many customers come to you each day, whether it is mostly men or women who buy from you and in what age groups, how many of them come back to your shop repeatedly, how customers react to a new product, an ad or a campaign, what mood they are in and much more. Based on repeat visits you can identify when a VIP customer walks into your shop, personalise an offer or service for them, and use many other metrics that maximise your understanding of your customer.

Note: they placed us fairly accurately by age, and we even resemble a few famous people :)

We also came across artificial intelligence at the stand of the company Catchoom, whose intelligent recognition solution gives you a new shopping and product experience. Shops (above all in fashion, gastronomy and bookselling) implement their solution on mobile devices and let users scan a label or EAN code to get to a product description, a recommendation, a product review or other information about the product.

Virtual reality

Quite a lot has already been written about virtual reality and it has been on the market for a fairly long time. Of course, PRW did not lack the chance to bypass the barriers of time and space, and we tried out what it is like to suddenly find yourself in another world. At the moment virtual reality is used above all in planning shops, in showrooms and in presenting more expensive products.

Augmented reality

Augmented reality, however, is finding wider use in the world of retail, letting a merchant offer the customer their own experience of a product. At the fair we came across presentations of augmented reality several times. In a fitting booth they „dressed“ us in their brand's goods and, without actually trying anything on, we could see whether a particular fashion piece suited us or not. In this way shops are trying to get even closer to the customer and make their buying decision easier.

Among the world-famous names using augmented reality is IKEA. It lets you picture a specific piece of furniture right in your own home. All you have to do is point your phone at the room and see whether the piece you have your eye on would fit.

Holograms, holograms and more holograms

They were everywhere. They caught the attention of every single visitor. At the conference they primarily helped improve companies' image and in many cases showed off the exceptional nature of their products, helping them stay ahead of the competition.

Logistics

Since our company works in logistics and dispatch, we were curious what logistics services the French market offers, on what principles logistics companies' systems work, how advanced automation is there and what other options are provided as part of their services. We discussed the topic with representatives of companies such as ShippingBo, Chronopost, Deliver.ee and Neopost Shipping. We do not want to give away the details; we took inspiration from some of them and will be rolling them out gradually … in Neoship :) As for the current trends logistics is setting, it was clearly delivering shipments by bicycle in large cities, „same day“ delivery, and the key aspect is undoubtedly automating processes at every single step.

Marketing and data possibilities

Marketing enthusiasts and data lovers also got their money's worth in Paris. With the arrival of modern technologies comes an unlimited number of opportunities that open the door to new possibilities in the world of online marketing, in collecting data, evaluating it and then choosing a marketing strategy. As these companies were fairly well represented at PRW, we bring you at least a few interesting observations that caught our attention.

The company Channable presented their system, which handles the positioning of your products on more than 1,000 price comparison sites, allows you to easily create dynamic ads in your product feed and, through imports, lets you synchronise order data from many marketplaces straight into your e-shop. Simple, fast integration of Google Analytics into your Channable account lets you analyse the output data for your products.

We talked about the possibilities of predictive marketing with a representative of the company Sailendra, whose „Sailsense“ system uses artificial intelligence to analyse and predict user behaviour online. Sailsense is a system developed to increase online sales. It knows the product catalogue in detail, analyses user behaviour in real time and then gives the customer a personalised recommendation for a specific product.

We came across an innovative idea for a unique mobile platform at the company CM Groep B.V., whose solution offers new ways to reach your target audience even more effectively, get as close to it as possible and offer it everything from one place. Their solution focuses on establishing genuine contact with your customer through integrated SMS, voice and extended payment options, users' digital identity and securing cloud services. To better understand the basis on which the CM platform works, you can look at their diagram.

All this and much more under one roof. That was the fourth edition of PRW. Comprehensive, modern and inspiring. During the three days we spent in Paris we soaked up not only the beauty of the city but also the atmosphere of the retail world in Western European countries, which is yet to reach Slovakia.

Thanks to a grant from the SBA – Slovak Business Agency, we gained an experience you can have too.

We would also point you to other upcoming events (Shopcomm, Reshoper) that could be inspiring for you and your business. All you have to do is choose :)