- May 1, 2018
Updated: Feb 18, 2021
Retail industry leaders and innovators from around the world gathered in Madrid, Spain April 17-19 for the annual World Retail Congress. This year’s theme was “Innovate to Win” and more then 1,400 attendees and 130 speakers participated in the high-level forum. The goal? Discovering the needs of today’s consumers to ensure their businesses stay dynamic.
Before the main event, Smartzer founder, Karoline Gross arrived in Madrid early and was thrilled to be invited to a briefing event at the UK Embassy. The information presented by the UK Trade Commission focused on introducing the role of the DIT in helping businesses expand internationally and it was excellent to network with other UK based retailers and startups headed to the World Retail Congress.
During the three-day event., Smartzer exhibited in the main hall where we introduced our shoppable video technology to retail leaders interested in pioneering technology like Smartzer's shoppable video solution. Some of the most interesting forums attended were by Dimas Alvarez, Chairman of El Corte Inglés, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Tommy Hilfiger CEO, Avery Baker.
In addition to introducing Smartzer to retail leaders and attending the forum, we found time to discover other exhibiting technologies. Excellent examples of the future of retail included Alibaba Tmall’s interactive mirror which creates your digital avatar to virtually try on clothes.
Karoline also attended the Women in Retail event hosted by El Corte Ingles. The winner of 2018 Business Woman of the Year was Laura , CEO of Williams Sonoma.
Smartzer cannot wait to be part of next year’s World Retail Congress.
Read more about the event:
- Apr 7, 2017
Updated: Feb 17, 2021
From 4th-6th April 2017, Miles (Head of Business Development) attended World Retail Congress in Dubai. Here's his summary about his time at the event:
Held annually, World Retail Congress brings together world leaders in retail to share expertise and research in an international extravaganza. This year marked the 10th anniversary of the event and the theme was “Reimagining the customer experience”, an aim which is top priority for so many retailers at the moment.
In exploring this theme, I kept myself busy attending talks and showcasing Smartzer. We had been delighted to be selected to by the Department for International Trade to represent the UK as part of their “Best of British Brands at World Retail Congress” group. This gave us the opportunity to network with a range of retail experts and company representatives and share Smartzer’s shoppable video technology and vision for interactive videos. Of course, our work is especially pertinent to this year’s theme as we are able to utilise our unique technology to transform the customer experience. Demonstrating the potential for a seamless shopping experience directly from a company’s existing video content.
Beyond sharing the exciting potential for Smartzer’s video content marketing technology, there were over 130 speakers including retail leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs, giving a range of interesting, educational and current talks. Highlights from the talks that we attended include Karen Katz (CEO, President and Director, Neiman Marcus) speaking on “Retaining Relevance: The Rejuvenation of Brand”. We also had the chance to hear a panel discussion about value retailing as the next retail revolution from Sander van der Laan (CEO, Action), Nicholas Dreyfus (Co-Founder & CEO, The Kooples), and Karl Heinz-Holland (Former CEO, LIDL). These talks, amongst others, provided valuable insights into the opinions of industry experts about the future of retail and I'm looking forward to sharing these with the rest of the Smartzer team.
As always, it was great to catch up with previous and existing clients as well as making new connections, and I had plenty of exciting conversations where positive feedback about Smartzer’s work was given!
Smartzer would like to say a massive thank you to World Retail Congress for putting on such an engaging and relevant few days in a wonderful location!