retail asia expo 2015 recap by fbic global retail tech
TRANSCRIPT
1 Fung Business Intelligence Centre Global Retail & Technology Flash Report: Retail asia expo 2015 Copyright © 2015 The Fung Group. All rights reserved.
June 11, 2015
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This week, we attended the 7th Annual Retail Asia Expo in Hong Kong, which showcased 165 primarily local companies from 60 countries and was attended by about 8,500 visitors. While most of the vendors at the show demonstrated hardware such as product-‐display racks and lighting, a number of booths demonstrated high-‐tech offerings, including facial recognition, RFID and mobile apps, and interesting uses of infrared-‐light technology. We’ve included a table with some of the most interesting companies we saw at the end of this report.
ABOUT THE RETAIL ASIA EXPO The Expo is a retail trade show that focuses on three areas: retail technology, retail design and in-‐store marketing, and Internet retailing. The show offered exhibits, seminars, retail awards and networking opportunities, including a gala dinner and a cocktail reception.
The Expo showcased retail solutions from more than 165 Hong Kong and international companies, although the majority of the exhibits seemed to belong to local Hong Kong vendors. Last year, 8,502 visitors from 60 countries visited the Expo, and attendance has been growing at 4% a year. The show is much smaller in size and scope than other retail shows such as the NRF BIG Show held in New York City in January, which saw 33,000 attendees, and the two MAGIC conventions every year, which see a total of 60,000 visitors.
Retail Asia 201 5 Expo RECAP
2 Fung Business Intelligence Centre Global Retail & Technology Flash Report: Retail asia expo 2015 Copyright © 2015 The Fung Group. All rights reserved.
COMPANIES WE MET Much of the technology we saw at the show is designed for brick-‐and-‐mortar retailers. It included items such as:
• Product shelving and display hardware
• Shop and product lighting systems
• POS systems
• Large displays
• Banknote counters that feed into attached, secure safes
3 Fung Business Intelligence Centre Global Retail & Technology Flash Report: Retail asia expo 2015 Copyright © 2015 The Fung Group. All rights reserved.
Achiever demonstrated facial-‐recognition software that enables retailers to identify customers, in particular big spenders. The company also demonstrated a tablet-‐based POS system that uses RFID codes to identify a product and includes a credit-‐card reader that enables the sales associate to take orders and payments from the store floor. www.achiever.hk
Cherrypicks Alpha demonstrated its Smart:D interactive kiosk, which uses a clever combination of electronics and mechanics. A transparent LCD display enables it to show graphics and provides a window to showcase real physical products. It uses an audio signal to communicate with smartphones without the need to configure Wi-‐Fi or Bluetooth.
Cherrypicks also showed attendees a product-‐demonstration system that uses a tablet and RFID tags in order to display information when a consumer picks up a (beauty) product; it also cleverly displays a comparison when a shopper picks up two or three products at the same time.
iButterfly is a smartphone app that uses a game in which consumers catch animated butterflies in order to receive offers, redeem them and share them with friends via social media. www.cherrypicks.com
Eats365 makes smartphone and tablet apps that allow diners to place an order, reserve a table and pay for food at busy Hong Kong restaurants. The apps let users perform all of these functions in English or Chinese. www.eats365.com
Fanswifi helps users find free Wi-‐Fi hotspots, and when they log in via their Facebook account, it collects their demographic information, which it then uses for loyalty programs and to generate coupons. www.fanswifi.com
Power Non Stop demonstrated a clever cell phone charging station with a display that takes cashless payments. At a shopping mall, a consumer can put his or her cell phone in a charging locker, and receive a receipt that contains promotions. Consumers can also receive advertising via videos on the embedded panel. The kiosk accepts payment via Hong Kong’s ubiquitous Octopus card. www.powernonstop.com
Pricer enables the dynamic updating of thousands of price labels in grocery and other retail stores. Its system uses an infrared transmitter in the ceiling of a store, and a full update takes approximately 15 minutes. The price labels are comprised of small LCD or e-‐ink displays that can be customized with logos or promotions. www.pricer.com
Viametrics is a Swedish company whose product uses thermal-‐sensing technology to count precisely the number of people entering a store or a specific area. The visitors are not specifically identified, in accordance with European privacy laws. www.viametrics.com
WEOUT is a lifestyle and convenience social-‐media app that enables users to order food in a restaurant, order takeout, book a table, and view restaurant and beauty-‐treatment recommendations in London, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai. www.weout.me
4 Fung Business Intelligence Centre Global Retail & Technology Flash Report: Retail asia expo 2015 Copyright © 2015 The Fung Group. All rights reserved.
Deborah Weinswig, CPA Executive Director—Head of Global Retail & Technology Fung Business Intelligence Centre New York: 917.655.6790 Hong Kong: +852 6119 1779 [email protected] Cam Bolden [email protected] Sunny Chan [email protected] Marie Driscoll, CFA [email protected] John Harmon, CFA [email protected] Aragorn Ho [email protected] John Mercer [email protected] Charlie Poon [email protected] Kiril Popov [email protected] Stephanie Reilly [email protected] Lan Rosengard [email protected] Jing Wang [email protected]