design:retail - April/May 2018 - 8

editor's note

008

Takeaways from
GlobalShop 2018

ALISON EMBREY MEDINA
EDITOR IN CHIEF/ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

alison.medina@emeraldexpo.com
@dretaileditor

OME OF YOU may have
attended GlobalShop
2018 in Chicago this
past March. I walked the
show floor, attended several conference sessions,
participated in board discussions and
mingled away at after-hours events.
My biggest takeaway from the show?
We're at a turning point for the retail
design industry. All of the conversations, products, seminars and overall
mood led me to the feeling that
we-that all retail is on the cusp of
something. Below is my list of quotes, observations
and takeaways that resonated most with this editor
after a week in Chicago.
"I'm not scared of Amazon-they are making
all of us better." This statement, from WWD keynote speaker Tom Nolan, chief marketing and
revenue officer for lifestyle jewelry brand Kendra
Scott LLC, could not ring more true for me. If you
think Amazon is killing your business, then make
your business better. Tom and I chatted before his
session, about kids and golf and life, and getting
to know him on a personal level proved the same
easy connection the brand strives to make with
each and every customer that walks through the
doors of its 75 stores. "It's not about the bricks and
the mortar; it's what you do inside them," he said.
"The real story is retail sales were up $232 billion
in 2017." Coming from Kelly Sayre, a retail analyst
for IHL Group, this number hit home. While headlines would all have us believe stores are dying and
all purchases are now made from our living rooms,
Sayre shared poignant numbers that told a different
story. "Amazon accounted for only half of the online
growth this holiday," she said. "Retail sales were up

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DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM

5 percent in January and February year over year,
but it's being reported as bad news." She added
that 47 percent of retail closures came from just
16 retailers (RadioShack alone closed 1,200 stores).
One thing Amazon is doing absolutely right? They
are investing $15.1 billion a year on innovation
research. As the saying goes, you've got to spend
money to make money. On the brick-and-mortar
front, Sayre encouraged retailers to invest in transformational IT and remove the friction of buying.
"The youth have always been the drivers of
change." Gen Z expert Marcie Merriman, chief
culture hacker at Ernst & Young LLP, emphasized
that the pace of change is only going to move faster, and that we may start to see a shift from mega
generations (i.e. Boomers, Gen X, Millennials) into
more micro-generations-and the impact on retail
could be monstrous. "Generations are born from
change," she said. In a mobile-first Gen Z world
(94 percent of the population has a smartphone),
the up-and-coming generation will expect instant,
seamless and hassle-free, and will demand freedom
of choice, control and transparency. View toward
gender is much more fluid, Facetime is the norm

GLOBALSHOP.ORG

and "live" is the new novelty. "Sixtyeight percent of [Gen Z] females
would rather be strong than skinny,"
Merriman said, of this new generation
to watch.
Flexibility is key. Walking the show
floor this year, the theme that resonated most prominently with me across
product categories was flexibility.
From configurable fixture sets that
can quickly fold up for easy storage
to theatric lighting elements that can
be programmed from headquarters,
magnetic shelving, snap-fit signage
and more-the ability to change, mold and adapt a
product line was in high demand on the show floor.
The next wave is coming. The big buzz at the
show was the announcement of next year's colocation, where GlobalShop will join forces with
the Internet Retailer Conference + Exhibition
(IRCE), the world's largest e-commerce event, and
RFID Journal LIVE! Retail, the only RFID event
dedicated specifically to retail application, for a
new super show called RetailX. What does this
mean? This means retail designers can now walk
one show floor with their IT staff, operations team
and senior-level management, and see innovation coming from all sides of the retail industry in
one place, at one time. What conversations might
come out of a day of collaboration like that? If retail aims to truly be seamless between physical and
digital, this will be the show to make that happen.
Join us at RetailX, June 25-27, 2019, at McCormick
Place in Chicago. The future awaits.

http://www.DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM http://www.GLOBALSHOP.ORG

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