Get a First Look at the Retail Industry’s Trade Fair with Exhibitions from all over the World!
So EuroShop where do start?
Well, what I didn’t know was that the first-ever show took place in 1966 in Germany – an interesting year for English Football historians! I’ll move on!
Anyways almost some 60 years on and the biggest Retail Industry show has continued to grow with over 110,000 visitors and mulling in around 2,300 suppliers across 5 days.
For me, this year was a little different with a new company to represent (I’m also German so no pressure!) and mixing my time on the hugely impressive Wanzl stand making sure customers got the best out of the event – the most important part of EuroShop for me.
Across the days, you can sense the excitement from visitors. After all, Euroshop is every 3 years and showcases the best in class from Shop Fitters, Technology, Lighting, POS, Marketing and Design companies. There is a lot to see and a lot to miss if you get the planning wrong!
Watch the video to get a quick peek.
My Top Tips for Getting the Best From EuroShop:
1. Ahead of the show plan your key stand visits: if you’re properly smart you may get lunch taken care of for you! (or a little German beer). There is an app that you can use to lock in with suppliers.
2. Generally you’ll be there with colleagues: the best attack is to divide and conquer! Just because you have Lighting on your agenda does not mean your colleagues do. Spend your time wisely.
3. Wear really comfy shoes: you’re likely to be on your feet all day and all night if you hit Old Town Dusseldorf. Average steps are around 15k so look after those ‘plates of meat.’
4. Stick to the plan: see something that catches your eye? Make a note and add it to your plan. There are many distractions like pyrotechnics, dry ice and dancing violinists!
5. In your EuroShop plan have a re-visit time as you’ll need to circle back around and then take your colleagues to the really important game-changing stands & meetings.
6. Create the next steps before you land back in the UK: without a doubt, you’ll be busy catching back up and balancing all of this with cool new stuff & relationships is tough.
EuroShop for me gives customers and suppliers a time to reset and rethink, align new solutions into strategy and catch up with industry friends (and foes) that have time away from their busy day jobs to talk about shared retail challenges
Day 1 transcript
Hi Darren, I hope you’re well. Day one of Euroshop, a very very busy start. I know that some of the guys in the UK are going to face some challenges with reported strikes into Dusseldorf, but hopefully, everyone makes a safe journey in. Just a quick intro to the stand. So we’re in 11, which I think is a different stand to normal, to Wansal, but yeah, it’s got a real buzz about it this morning. Let me quickly show you the entry to the stand.
Huge Wansal sign as you’d expect, and then our strap line which you’ll see on lots of our LinkedIn posts is Find Your Way. I’m just going to walk through now into the stand, hopefully, you’ll see lots of excitement. So we’ve categorised the stand into lots of smaller concepts that take you through lots of our innovation, lots of our standard ranges in terms of trolleys and baskets, but also some really good information around bakery. A real buzz, a lot of people really interested in what we’re doing with robotics and AI in bakery. So, look, this is it for now. I’ll speak to you soon. Hope your day’s going well. Cheers.
Day 2 Transcript
Morning, Darren. I hope you’re well. Day two of Euro shop. My feet are still hurting from yesterday. But I think today’s gonna be a great day. There were some risks. There could a challenge for lots of people getting here. But it looks as though many people have kind of flown into other airports, some into San Amsterdam and, and get in the car across for two and a half hours. This shows how important these sorts of shows are to the retail community.
I’m in Hall four, so it’s a really exciting place generally around visual display and design and how to enhance the customer experience. So I’m just gonna take on a quick tour of some of the bits I’ve seen already, lots more to see. And I’ll try and give you another tour around some other boots later on. Just turn around a bit and you’re starting to see then how there’s a real drive on customer experience. How to drive value through great signage. Making sure that customers really understand what’s going on. I love this. It’s really cool. I’ll take it down here as well.
This is a good giant toothbrush for anyone. Lots of really familiar brands and suppliers are on. And you go back to more of a traditional look and feel just missing the mariachi band there and we’re perfect. There’s Lots of really good stuff around LE and fans, which I think’s really good, but I don’t think you guys can see it properly on video. It’s a real shame cause it looks cool. But We’re all set for another great day. I think lots of people have made some serious effort to make sure that they’re not missing out on the show. So look, I’m wanna go and spend some time with customers at the Vanil stand. I’ll speak to you guys later.
Day 3 Transcript
Hey, how are you doing? Day three at EuroShop. I’m not gonna lie. Very late night looking after customers and today I feel a little bit tired. I’m hoping that the coffee will keep me going today. I’ll show you a little bit more around Hall 11, but some really interesting suppliers here. One thing that’s really apparent this year is there’s a real theme in terms of sustainability, which as we know is super important. Not for retailers to deliver, but also for suppliers to lead and to take responsibility. So yeah, let me turn the camera and have a quick look at where we are now.
So in the middle of Hall 11 so we’ll see Whole Builder by Schweitzer has made that corrugated cardboard tubes, which I think looks really quite cool with a view of what they do, and they go back in that all of the stems will be recycled. It would be interesting, whether or not that’s 100% true. But hoping it is. And then a modern expo interesting Ukrainian company. Very, very, very good brand presence. But again, their stand and I managed to get on there on Monday with the customer is really talking about how we look after the planet and what we do. So a video in their hall.
Then as you leave, get gifted a treater plant, which is a really nice option. It’s one of our YL colleagues. Good morning. Then into some of the other units across here. Some really good dynamic points of sale. So again, that argument around paper point of sale and reprint. We’re going digital. Got a really nice look. Nice fresh herbs there as well. There we go. Missing through. And these guys look really cool. I believe it’s a Turkish business. I’ve got some time on the stand later this afternoon, so I’ll maybe take a bit more time to look at it. But again, really setting the tone around sustainability. But again, a really, really bright, vibrant stand. Looks really, really strong.
Some good points of sale. Some really good exhibitors this year talking about their points of difference in the market, and we do that. But I genuinely think that this year’s EuroShop is the best one I’ve been to so far and contributing in. So yeah, some really good stuff in here. I really, really enjoy taking time to look through. What I will do tomorrow, I think, is just talk about outside of huge, big supplier bases what else on the show, because there’s lots of independence, lots of startup businesses.
I think sometimes you can find some little gems. You can find some really good guys that with the right backing of support have something really, really creative and something new into the market. Look, that’s it for today. I’ll speak to you soon. Take care.
Thank you, Lee!
