The signs for EuroShop 2023, The World’s No.1 Retail Trade Fair, are good, because especially now, after two years of tough restrictions due to the pandemic, which hit the global retail industry hard, EuroShop in Düsseldorf, from 26 February to 2 March 2023, is proving to be more important than ever. This is because the covid crisis has also become an accelerator for the digitalisation and smooth networking of all retail channels in the trade, driving the need for new solutions for energy saving and sustainability. In addition, it is unleashing unimagined creativity, which above all serves to make shopping as convenient as possible for the clientele, to react to changing habits, to meet new needs and to optimise customer loyalty with experience-oriented, holistic concepts.
EuroShop and its approximately 1,700 exhibitors from 56 nations not only pick up on global developments, but also present the entire spectrum of current trends and future-oriented solutions on 100,000 m² net exhibition space in 16 exhibition halls. In doing so, it currently focuses on particularly important topics that affect the most diverse areas of retail.
The hot topics of EuroShop 2023 are: Connected Retail, Sustainability, Smart Store, Energy Management, Third Places, Customer Centricity, Experience, Lively City Centres.
The structure of EuroShop 2023 has been further developed to meet the needs of the industry. It comprises eight clearly defined experience Dimensions. The advantages of this new structure: an even more visitor-oriented offering, synergies between different Dimensions, which are already strongly interlinked, more hall space for strongly growing areas such as retail technology or refrigeration.
The eight dimensions of EuroShop 2023 in detail:
Dimension Shop Fitting, Store Design & Visual Merchandising is the heart of EuroShop and its largest dimension. The best architects, designers, planners and manufacturers are represented with uniquely designed presentations thought through down to the smallest detail and provide answers to current questions from retailers, such as: What does a shop or store have to be today? Place of adventure? Feelgood location? Third place? Pop-up marketplace? What does it have to look like, how should it feel? EuroShop provides creative and pragmatic answers to these questions. In this dimension, visitors can be inspired by temporary design or modular concepts, but also find tangible solutions for sustainability. Nature serves often as model for forms and function, but at the same time digital elements are indispensable as well.
When it comes to experience and staging, fascination and atmosphere, all roads lead to light. Its diverse technical applications, from smart lighting to IoT, combined with ecological aspects such as sustainability and efficiency – this is what the Dimension Lighting at EuroShop 2023 is all about.
It presents the complete range of modern illumination and store lighting: from the entrance area to the presentation of goods to the checkout zone. LED technologies, for example, provide completely new possibilities for setting the emotional stage for products. Always in focus: sustainable energy solutions and intelligent lighting management.
Functional and beautiful – these two characteristics are by no means mutually exclusive. This is proven by our exhibitors in the new Dimension Materials & Surfaces. Whether floors, walls, ceilings or furniture – top quality is important for long-lasting stability and optimum functionality. And in terms of sustainability, a lot is possible nowadays with the right choice of materials. In retail and office spaces, excellent visual as well as acoustic properties of materials are also essential. The right choice of coverings, claddings or fixtures can make all the difference in whether your store achieves the effect you want to create.
Seamless Store, Analytics, AI, Mobile Payment, Connected Retail are just some of the dominant topics in the Dimension Retail Technology. It may read like a list of digital buzzwords, but these are the current and future customer relationship challenges. Digitalized and omnichannel communication as well as big data are revolutionizing relations between buyer and seller, customer and brand. The consequence? Shopping becomes an interactive high-tech experience. But classic retail technology is also developing rapidly. The exhibitors in the Retail Technology dimension help to shape perspectives and future fields of retail through the driving force of intelligent technology.
Customer engagement and journey, brand experience in the bricks-and mortar store and online shop, personalization via mobile devices, artificial intelligence, digital signage – in the Dimension Retail Marketing, the international trade audience can expect the entire spectrum of increasingly digital, increasingly intensive interaction with the customer. The main thing is that retailers need to succeed in winning the customer’s attention. Dimension Retail Marketing shows the most attractive and fascinating installations for the point of purchase.
Dimension Expo & Event Marketing at EuroShop is the top location for live communication. This must be intensive, unique and authentic in order to inspire. This also includes holistically designed brand experiences. Tradeshows and events transitioning to the age of digitalization and festivalization. A spirit of new beginnings is clearly noticeable and is reflected 1:1 at EuroShop with forward-looking ideas and presentations, including cross-media networking.
Dimension Food Service Equipment presents cooking & baking, convenience systems, food technology and to-go solutions at EuroShop 2023. Catering is the megatrend in retail. The out-of-home market is growing by leaps and bounds – and everywhere. In the USA, for example, more than every second dollar is spent on food and drinks outside the home. In this way, the customer becomes a guest in the retail sector as well – in shopping centers, supermarkets, gas stations. It’s all about new shopping experiences and lasting customer loyalty. The recipes are varied, ranging from special convenience and to-go concepts to attractive themed restaurants and entire food worlds.
Profitability, sustainability and efficiency are also top priorities in retail. It is especially here that the pressure on prices and from competitors is rising and investment in the right future technologies is therefore all the more important. Dimension Refrigeration & Energy Management will be showcasing the optimum equipment for stores – from chilling cabinets, refrigeration systems and systems for indoor farming to air-conditioning, heat recovery and building management not forgetting a ramp-up of e-mobility.
The supporting events for EuroShop 2023
Besides the extensive ranges displayed by participating companies from throughout the world, EuroShop’s USP is the quality and bandwidth of its unique line-up of side events.
Seven stages
The backbone are the seven EuroShop stages. These are lecture and discussion forums with high-calibre speakers addressing latest developments, innovative trends, and best practice amidst the trade fair activities; admission is free for all EuroShop visitors without pre-registration (simultaneously interpreted into German/English or in English only). All stages at a glance: Store Design Stage, Retail Designers’ Stage, Retail Technology Stage, Connected Retail Stage, Start-up Stage, Retail Marketing Stage and Expo & Event Stage.
EuroShop’s Special Areas – brimming with ideas
The Special Areas of EuroShop comprise various areas that offer free spaces for specialists, start-ups, the X, Y & Z Generations, for ideas, visions and innovative products. Tried-and-tested EuroShop Special Areas include the Designers’ Village, the Start-up hub, POPAI Shop Global Village and IFES Global Village as well as the Italian Lighting Lounge.
In addition to this, 2023 will also see three Special premieres:
The “Future Urban Lab” presents and develops jointly with visitors new attractivity factors and visiting occasions for tomorrow’s cities. An interactive format with a high experience factor that provides impulses and inspirations for the entire industry.
The “Room4Senses” focuses on sensual perception. After all, it is external and internal stimuli that influence our perception and trigger a wide variety of feelings. Our senses can be deceived or seduced especially by Visual Merchandising. Students from the Technical School for Advertising Design Stuttgart reduce the sensorics of the trade fair audience to four senses at the Room4Senses Special. Here the sensual experiences and their potential use on, for instance, retail areas are analysed.
The “Retail Ball Game” of the Düsseldorf University (HSD) invites attendees to take a deep breath, reflect, seek orientation and play around with ideas. This open communication platform addresses challenges and solution approaches for retail of the coming years and focalises a better and more open connection between a wide variety of disciplines in the urban sphere.
And the winner is…Awards at the EuroShop
The EuroShop Awards not only reflect the significance of EuroShop but above all honour outstanding achievements of the international retail community and related fields.
First and foremost, the renowned EuroShop Retail Design Awards will be presented for outstanding store concepts and store designs, as will the coveted Retail Technology Awards Europe (reta) for excellent IT and the science award of EHI for excellent scientific work, that are highly relevant to the retail sector. Furthermore, the Shop!/ POPAI D-A-CH Awards, the IFES Development & Innovation Award and the Exhibitor Magazine EuroShop Awards will be presented during EuroShop 2023.
