Inspiration for shopping in tomorrow’s stores

Over 1,900 exhibitors from 90 countries attended this year’s renewed EuroShop event. Both the number of exhibitors and visitors to the event broke all time records. Visitors were able to see what the future trends in technology will be, while a number of conferences were also held for the professionals In the 1990’s, I still regarded EuroShop as an interesting event for the German market. By this year, the horizons have been widened. 55 per cent of exhibitors came from foreign countries, with 40 from the USA alone and four from Hungary. The POP marketing conference was probably the best held during the exhibition. The most popular presentations were held by representatives of American companies. The American presence at the conference about innovations in retail was also substantial. The reason for the increase in the number of foreign participant was that the number of topics was wider than ever before, including clothing, consumer electronics and all kinds of services. A robot equipped with a touch screen was used to help visitors find whatever they were looking for. As Andreas Bley, director of Metra Kft, the manufacturer of the robot has told us, data about 60,000 articles is stored in the memory of Scitos A5 robots, which can replace expensive information desk staff. They are best for 5,000-7,000 square meter stores, where 3-4 should be used. Unit price is EUR 35,000. According to Szilvia Máté, the representative of the Düdsseldorf exhibition in Hungary, Euroshop 2008 has surpassed all expectations. Hungarian exhibitor like Ákos Tichy, director of Idea Zona, reported actual orders signed at the event. The other exhibitors were Karton Art with special packaging materials from Dunapack, Mobilia Artica and ShopGuard. New trends have appeared in store interior design and furniture, which are focused on developing standardised, multifunctional products. “Effects to create a pleasant atmosphere and convenient shopping” are the keys to store design. As Götz Werner, member of the board of dm summed up his impressions: “We have seen many creative ideas. EuroShop is about the positive atmosphere of shopping and the openness of the retail business to investment.”