EUROSHOP 2017 DIGEST

All a blur?

Can’t remember what you saw?

Didn’t go in the first place?

As the world’s largest retail trade show, Euroshop can be an exercise in stamina as much as anything else and it’s always interesting to try and recall what really stood out a couple of weeks later.

Here are just a few of the things that caught our eye.

And if you didn’t make it to any stores in Dusseldorf while you were there, we spotted a couple of gems which you can read more about at the end of this report…

Lighting

Digital

Systems

Surfaces

POP

Retail Technology

Forums

Beyond the Messe

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5.

6.

8.

10.

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2

Lighting

Apparent here was the polarisation of super-cool minimal and free-form decoration. The former was typified by Folio and the elegant frames with integral LED found on the Klus stand.

It looks like the latter has responded to the popularity of square metal tubes to offer a cleaner solution than add-on lighting. On the free-form side there was an abundance of flexible LED ropes, easy to trim to any size and billowing cloud-like forms offered by Molo.

Also noteworthy was a really slick internally illuminated glass display case by Turnlights. They’ve managed to get LEDs in the corners where the glass joins but made it super-tiny so you almost don’t read it as a frame.

3Molo

4Klus Turnlights

Digital

Digital mirrors have come a long way and there were several good examples. No longer the usual Leicester Square pixilation but a sharp, crisp moving image across the glass with amazing depth of colour.

Less impressive was a digital changing room. The notion was that you could stand in front of a person-size digital screen and a headless figure apes your movements and you can change the outfits. Maybe it needed a bit more testing but the interface (a smartphone) wasn’t intuitive and when I had a go I had to hand it back as the navigation went off and the demonstrators had to reset it for me.

They told me my colleague would have to move further away as it was “confusing” the computer – a real problem in the (not unlikely) event of two people shopping together. We were mystified as to how shoppers would use this other than as a novelty. For a start the headless, anonymous image isn’t really sufficient to gauge whether something looks right on you (it’s a standard body shape).

In addition if the shoppers are surrounded by clothes they want to choose and can get a clearer idea in an “analogue” changing room why wouldn’t they? The fact they’ve visited a store means they’ve moved beyond the abstract and likely online research, so the store is when it’s time to get real. There’s a hint of something useful here and once the technology catches up and the customer benefit is more well-defined, it could add a lot more to the store experience.

A much simpler and more useful application was a camera and full-size screen with a time delay. It offered the facility to look back at what you were doing a few seconds ago - so if you wanted to see what you looked like from the back or side you just had to turn round, then turn back again to watch the delayed replay. Angled mirrors can achieve something like this, but with the ability to freeze poses and see movement after you’ve made it gives a little extra reassurance for the customer that what they’ve chosen is right for them

5Example of a gesture-based screen implemented in Superdry, Berlin (Seymour Powell)

Systems

The growth of pop-ups and increased frequency of change in stores makes this area interesting as a way to consider how we can refresh stores faster and cheaper.

Surprisingly though there was little new to see here – but looking round the Hall 4 at the event at the exhibition companies gave us more food for thought that could be applied to retail.

EC Wall looks like a good solution for more architectural changes and has the added advantage of being able to refresh the complete look of a store rapidly with ceramic tiles giving a greater sense of permanence. Another system, the Advan-Wand wall system offers a slightly more basic take on this with MDF panels that could work for a rapid swap out of non-illuminated graphic walls.

Additionally they showed an interesting modular table system which could be a useful principle for retailers and brands using multiple sizes but with a common internal structure.

6EC Wall

7Advan-Wand modular table and wall system

Surfaces

Texture, texture and more texture.

Holzmosaik go beyond the standard square wooden blocks that are everywhere these days offering a fantastic array of wooden panels ranging from sleek and modernist to rustic.

As well as felt cropping up everywhere, Molo (their light fittings mentioned above) had an amazing stand made out of their kraft paper Softwall.

It’s a very singular design so very niche, but inspirational none the less. So we’re not sure where we could use it yet but we know we like it.

8Holzmosaik

9Molo Softwall and furniture

POP

I always find this the hardest area to take in. The emphasis always seems to be on structure, form and embellishment with less regard for the way that shoppers might interact with displays. It points up one of the biggest challenges for brands in a retail space: if everybody is shouting loudly how does shouting in the same way actually help?

STI Group touched on this in one of the POPAI forums. They claimed to be using a scientific method of assessing temporary displays in store, both through online surveys and small store trials. There were lots of slides with impressive looking visualised eye-tracking data.

We could see how this worked on single units but it really only focussed on a customer standing on a fixed point staring at one display, when the reality for the shopper is moving through a space in a blizzard of competing messages and displays. A more fruitful approach to this conundrum would be to get back to unearthing customer-relevant insights that give you more precise ways to target and engage.

In contrast to STI, Cheil’s campaign style approach seemed to offer more effective ways to reach customers by thinking through a wider approach. Although all the forums are a pitch by another name, Cheil’s was at least entertaining and demonstrated how we all need to move beyond purely focussing what happens in store and consider where else the shoppers attention might be and how they’re influenced by what they encounter both before and during the shopping trip.

Exploring cultural differences such as the propensity for South Korean workers to sleep on their way to work (due to the endemically long hours worked) they devised a campaign that rewarded the waker with a free Burger King coffee, claimed with tokens held within the eye mask.

10Translation: “Wake me up at Gangnam Station”

Retail Technology

Halls 2, 6 and 7 are probably the most visually boring, but dig a bit and there’s lots of stuff worth looking at.

IBM’s stand doesn’t make it very clear immediately what it’s about but chatting with them revealed a powerful set of tools to help collect, use and analyse customer data. Not only that it gives a hint at how artificial intelligence is likely to play an increasing role in retail.

Watson is their core AI platform which offers a range of APIs that can link with all kinds of software and hardware. Most of these aren’t used extensively in bricks and mortar retail right now but the claims about the ability to learn and read emotions and offer personalised recommendations are intriguing. We’re already looking into this more deeply to see how it can enhance the digital experiences we’re already developing.

There plenty of companies offering customer tracking through lasers and cameras, showing how they can read emotions and age and combine this with heat maps to show customer traffic. One thing we’ve always wanted to see is a way of linking that traffic to product purchase at shelf level. All of the systems we saw can resolve customer movements within a metre or so which is great for understanding areas of the store but offers few clues to what’s happening at the buying decision point and what effect dwell has on single SKUs.

This is one of the reasons we were excited by Wise Shelf. This allows the store to collect real-time data of product at sales on shelf through IoT technology. Imagine the possibilities of combining this micro activity data with macro customer tracking. Even if it could be temporary for short-term analysis rather than a permanent stock control installation it could be very revealing and certainly something we’d be glad to see.

11IBM Watson

Forums

As mentioned, these can often be pitches but a couple of things stood out. Marcos Andrade, of Expor Mannequins clearly wanted to tell us how valuable mannequins could be, increasing the likelihood of sales of garments displayed on them by 42%. But the principle he was on about is right and it goes for most other areas of store display. At its core it’s about context. Bringing things to life and helping the customer envision how they would wear or use something will always help to bridge the “imagination gap” that can often prevent a sale.

One thing he said though really stuck. In describing the South American market he cited research where one shopper revealed that they viewed a store visit as a “15 minute vacation”. It’s such a good phrase and goal to bear in mind when we think about creating in-store experiences.

Eric Feigenbaum, editor of VMSD Magazine, gave a passionate defence of the physical store arguing that new in-store digital technology has to be part of an overall strategy rather than tacked on. And of course, he’s absolutely right. Putting a few screens in store which simply play the most recent TV ad or regurgitate the retailer’s website miss the point of digital completely.

At its best digital offers a way to build on the shoppers at-home digital activity to provide something that they can only experience in store.

12Aiming for the “15-minute vacation”

Beyond the Messe

With 18 halls to get round Euroshop can often be a time trial on a short visit, but it’s really worth trying to take in a few local stores – the exhibition messe doesn’t open until 10am so unless you’ve taken too much “refreshment” in the Altstadt the night before it’s easy to fit in.

The most obvious place is the Königsallee, a broad boulevard of mainly luxury retailers that’s a welcome change of pace from the exhibition scrum.

The likes of Gucci and Dior are masters of a consistent global format so maybe you won’t see much of the unexpected there.

It’s more interesting down at the “lower end” where retailers like Zara start to encroach. In their case it looks like the same fit-out as the UK but somehow the store seems sharper and more defined. I think it’s really about the way the product merchandising is better managed and subtle changes to the layout and segmentation, but it’s way slicker than its UK counterparts.

Continued...

13Königsallee

Beyond the Messe

Another store worth a visit is Douglas (possibly the most unlikely name for a high-end cosmetics retailer). One of the consultants told me their other town centre stores are more basic and this one was more of a flagship. It’s almost like a condensed department store beauty hall that still manages to retain an identity of its own with a cleverly connected set of rooms with their own distinct feel.

But there are some real finds away from the Königsallee. In one of the arcades you’ll come across Violas, a spice and delicatessen store that elevates it’s goods to something more akin to cosmetic and beauty products.

And if you want to see how beautifully brass hose fittings can be displayed then you should head down Steintsrasse to Manufactum. They have just nine stores in Germany selling, amongst other things household goods, garden tools, apparel, camping, cosmetics and food. So it’s a mixed bag but it’s all held together by a philosophy of making things by traditional manufacturing methods and creating beautiful objects that last.

That same care and attention has gone into the store design too with a real flair for display and encouraging browsing, exploration and discovery.

Finally, a serendipitous discovery somewhere between our hotel and the Königsallee: Jens Zapke, a traditional shoemakers and menders. Clearly a one-off and there’s no real cutting-edge design to see, but the way it tells a story of traditional quality and craftsmanship is a real joy.

14Douglas

15Manufactum

16Manufactum

17Violas

18Jens Zapke

19Jens Zapke

This is by no means exhaustive and everyone sees things differently.

So we’d be really interested to hear what caught your eye and how it might make a difference to what you do in store.

Sloane is a globally supported, insights-led retail and digital marketing business. We help brands and retailers execute their go-to-market strategies through design, technical development, prototyping and production of retail fixtures and furniture. Sloane is a Marmon/Berkshire Hathaway company.

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