Highlights of NRF Big Show 2016

The world’s largest retail event, NRF Big Show 2016 gathered more than 35,000 participants this year during four days in New York. With a large structure, it was possible to see the main trends governing the retail sector this year – many of them focused on the technological area, and mainly on customers.

Among the many issues discussed at the event, we selected some that were highlighted in this edition:

Productivity: worldwide retailers should invest in improving their operations by reducing costs and increasing efficiency; technology plays an important role in this task.

Millennials: the way this generation is related to brands is very different from the previous ones. Their values prioritize factors such as excellence, simplicity and good consumer experience. They are connected and impatient, and they want high quality in everything.

Customers as protagonists: we are entering an era when the brand is no longer the protagonist, giving its way to the customers. They should be the focus of advertising campaigns – and the more real the story is, the greater will be the brand’s approach with the public.

No borders: retail is no longer online or offline, it is in all environments. There are countless possibilities of contact with the customers in different directions and formats that the retailer should take advantage.

Collaborative: retail, as well as other areas of the economy, should be increasingly collaborative. Partnerships become great sources of innovation, with different teams, even companies, working simultaneously on the same project, reducing the time-to-market of innovations and expanding their potential.

Brand and culture purpose: these items have never been so evident. Consumers are increasingly concerned about the positioning of the companies in relation to the world. Is the company culture the same it wants to represent in its businesses? Does it have a purpose that suits its customers?

In this edition, we discussed again issues such as Big Data – endless customization capabilities source for customers – and restructuring the physical store, where there is a strong change of positioning.

Not everything was new at NRF, but one thing seems certain: on one side, there is still a long way to go by retailers to meet the quests of their increasingly demanding public; on the other, there are major innovations ready to be put into practice.