This year’s RetailEXPO was a huge success for team evoke – we built our biggest and best exhibition stand yet and showcased loads of brand new products.
Over the course of the two show days, our team took visitors to our stand through an RFID-powered retail customer journey and demonstrated our self-service technology which is used by world leading brands like McDonald’s and JD Sports.
We also took some time out to explore the latest in retail technology on show from the other exhibitors and hear the topics that the wide range of inspirational speakers were talking about. Here are our key takeaways from the show:
RFID
Our CTO Dean Ward took the lead on a full retail RFID experience for our exhibition stand this year. We know that the potential of RFID is huge and have developed a range of solutions to take advantage of this game-changing tech with a walkthrough of how the technology can work in a live retail environment.
RFID-enabled tags are easy to embed in merchandise, and screens or kiosks with special readers can be programmed to display content based on the action taken with the product.
A number of discussions focused on how RFID at the beginning of the supply chain is revolutionising stock control and logistics, and a panel on store design explored how RFID should form part of an overall technology strategy. Contact us to talk about how RFID technology can help in your business.
Customer Experience
The hot topic at this year’s RetailEXPO was “customer experience”. Many of the talks included the phrase in their subject and many suppliers claimed to have the solution to your customer experience problems.
Our experience with in-store customer journeys means that we know a thing or two about the customer experience and high-street statistics show that 80% of retail purchases still take place in person (higher for groceries). Trust, loyalty and brand heritage play a huge part and retailers who are confident in who they are and what they stand for are seeing growth rather than decline.
Kathryn Malloch, group head of customer experience at Hammerson Property says that Retailers will need to “rise to the challenge of consumers wanting to do more rather than buy more,” but other high profile speakers suggested that it’s possible to attract customers with an event or gimmick and still create revenue.
Inspiration and interaction formed a key part of discussions with retail leaders from Lego and M&Ms discussing how their flagship stores are focused on creating experiences that stay with customers, but also remain profitable through sales or personalised items, paid for events or limited editions – proving that drawing in the crowds can impact on the bottom line.
Surprising innovation
Finally, we saw lots of surprising new innovation that look set to further enhance store design. Our transparent and recessed LED screens led the way in the new generation of digital signage, creating thinner, brighter displays than ever before, and we heard about how retailers are already using some processes that are making a difference.
Some retailers are using real-time customer feedback to make responsive changes in store using survey systems like TruRating – a simple, one question feedback request at the checkout stage using the chip and pin pad has enabled JD sports to collect feedback from 88% of their customers and make live changes to staffing, displays and products.
If you missed us at this year’s RetailEXPO or would like any more information please get in touch and our team will be happy to help.
