"Making shopping even more convenient for consumers"

Interview with EuroCIS-Director Elke Moebius about the highlights and trends of the trade fair

Elke Moebius

EuroCIS 2016 was a complete success: boasting a significantly increased number of visitors and for the first time, an exhibition floor plan of more than 10,000m², it featured the latest trends in retail technology. At the conclusion of the trade fair, EuroCIS Director Elke Moebius reveals her personal highlights and looks ahead to the year 2017 – that’s when the retail community meets again at the EuroShop in Düsseldorf. 

My personal highlights were those innovations that make shopping even more convenient for consumers in the future, that provide additional services and also focus on providing a great shopping experience.

Whether it’s an electronic shelf label that sends ingredients, recipes or sales offers directly to the customer’s smartphone, a shopping cart that automatically follows the consumer around the supermarket, an intelligent dressing room that lets you try on clothes in a relaxed atmosphere or a magic shop window that invites customers via augmented reality and gesture control to interact, all of these trends demonstrate one thing above all: retail is highly aware of the fact that in times of many different available shopping channels, the consumer alone decides when, how and where he buys things. That’s why everyone who wants to be successful in retail needs to put an old motto that’s more important and pressing than ever into practice: the customer is always right.

How do you rate the development of EuroCIS over the past few years?

Excellent. EuroCIS 2016 was once again able to achieve record results. With 411 exhibitors on 10,800 total net exhibition space and more than 10,400 international visitors from 74 countries, EuroCIS trade fair achieved new all-time highs in all performance categories.

When the first EuroCIS – back then still under the name “Retail Technology Forum“ – launched in 1997, nobody would have imagined that this congress and exhibition would one day become the leading trade fair for the industry sector. Yet the trends were positive from the start; the renaming as EuroCIS in 2003 and switching to an annual cycle in 2006 were milestones in the trade fair’s success story. 

But it is primarily its wide range of products and services that made EuroCIS become the leading trade fair for retail technology in Europe in just one decade. No other trade fair reflects the dynamic technological development in retail and features retail technology in all its forms and functions in such a comprehensive and current approach. From checkout counters to complex supply chain management, it offers comprehensive solutions for retail enterprises with or without stores. And of course, it also focuses on current trends such as omnichannel, mobility, checkout, digital store, ERP and analytics. Today, EuroCIS is the meeting place in Europe for retail IT technologies.

EuroShop trade fair will return next year. Can you give us a brief look ahead?

Held once every three years, EuroShop, the world’s largest trade fair for the retail industry’s investment needs and its partners, will once again be an indispensable hands-on platform for future trends, visionary ideas, and retail impressions. New in 2017 will be our optimized concept. Just like the dynamic developments in retail, the world’s No.1 trade fair EuroShop is leading the way – with a future-oriented, powerful transformation.

More specifically this means the 4-segment structure of the past (consisting of EuroConcept, EuroSales, EuroCIS and EuroExpo) will be replaced in 2017 with a new system for the future, which is divided into seven experience dimensions: POP Marketing, Expo & Event Marketing, Retail Technology, Lighting, Visual Merchandising, Shop Fitting & Store Design and Food Tech & Energy Management. A total of 16 halls will be used for this event.

This new layout guarantees an even more visitor-oriented array of services while it leaves room for synergies in various dimensions that will increasingly merge in the long run, such as display mannequins for example and high-end stop fitting with store design. This means EuroShop 2017 will provide a more flexible setting as well as plenty of space to present future-oriented developments and innovative products for global retail.