[button link=”https://www.arredanegozi.it/2020/05/euroshop-2020-cronaca-di-una-fiera/ ” icon=”none” target=”” color=”a30b0b” textcolor=”ffffff”]TESTO ITALIANO[/button]
by Paola Fiore architect and account XT Retail
Dear Readers, … okay, we know your thoughts: “The umpteenth story on Euroshop 2020”!
Yet, this edition for XT Company is particularly important: this is because of our active involvement in the exhibition. In fact, the attendance of many of you on February, has already started for us since August 2019. On that occasion we were contacted by one of our partners and suppliers, Cefla of Imola (Italy), to project and fit out everything matter to visual merchandising on their stand.
Euroshop Exhibition represents a fundamental moment to share market trends: the focus is always on the shopping experience, through a greater connection between online and offline, simplifying and improving the purchase process.
In this story we would like to tell you about our double role as fitters/visual merchandisers and visitors/observers.
As you can imagine and as many of you will have already experienced, the preparatory phase is long and complex, especially since it is a 500 sqm stand where an example of a corner of real sales points is represented.
The project, in fact, included a 1950s-style bakery, an extremely technological fruit and vegetable area with grow units and information technologies, an extremely impactful wine area, a pharmaceutical corner with an adjacent shop in shop of cosmetics, a small florist and checkout counters.
Our participation focused on making the stand as real as possible, that is, making sure that the visitors really felt inside a store and that the setting created was underlined and highlighted by the product on display. How did we do it? Well, in the meantime, thanks to the participation of some very Italian and internationally known companies (Acetaia Giusti, Alcenero, Eurocompany, Libera Terra and Micor); but above all thanks to the study and meticulous research of suggestive and appealing display elements. Sometimes the organizational difficulty clashed with the display solutions, but the project went ahead, thanks to the fruitful partnership that was increasingly consolidated … and in February we left full of hopes -and products – to bring Made in Italy into Germany.
The latest three days before the Fair opening has ecstatic audience. It is not possible to proceed among the stands as everyone runs, mounts, cuts, paints, in short, the “daily bread” for a visual, just for XT professionals are.
The preparation is quite exciting, glancing occasionally, at the other stands to see where they are with the equipment, but above all to find out a preview of what they will offer to visitors.
Because it is said that at Euroshop, as in many other fairs, a silent war is fought: those who have the largest, most beautiful, most impactful or richest stand. The companies now compete with their rivals with captivating sceneries, wonderful setting but also with rich refresh parties.
As we gave our best on design and realization in considering the stand a bit like our son, by defending from everything and everyone, certainly the rivals had a great job, but our is incomparable!
At the opening day, Sunday 16th everything spotlessly clean and the feeling is like peace after war. We can finally take off our visual firm and enjoy the visit from visitors and experts in the sector.
Our interest immediately focuses on a sector that, obviously, we have at heart, that is visual merchandising.
At the beautiful Bonaveri stand we had the opportunity to ask some questions to the CEO, Mr Andrea Bonaveri :
As your yearly attendance to the Euroshop Fair, how do you think about this 2020 experience?
Euroshop is always a very important moment for the retail world, the opportunity to meet international customers and establish new contacts. The current experience has been certainly positive also, as we recorded an excellent flow of professionals.
In the domain of IT techs, how important is the attendance in a fair such as Euroshop?
Contact with the people as well as the presentation of the products and news is not something replaceable. Seeing and having a proof , knowing the professionalism and the people who work in a company is a precious and uncommon occasion, guaranteed only in structured and international fairs. The online services allow to reach a larger audience, but not to deepen and narrate in details.
What was the theme of your stand and how your customers perceived it?
We put on more than new products, but above all the know-how and the professionalism about a mannequin: from the sculptor to the dressmakers, from the creator of wigs to the make-up artists. The Bonaveri’s Maison had the ambition to bring a foreshortened of the Company into the Fair, in order to reveal the behind the scenes of our mannequins. It was a choice that met with success from customers, but also from those who still did not know us well, who certainly appreciated the different story.
As some influencers would say … “I love it”
Going ahead through the various pavilions we also found an acquaintance, the ABS Group, the first Italian company which reinvented the use of fabric for fitting, to design commercial areas, and exhibitions quite dynamic and engaging. We asked them some questions:
How did the experience at Euroshop 2020?
A jury of professionals and experts from the EXHIBITOR Magazine’s EuroShop Award has selected among more than 2400 exhibitors, the graphic and the fitting project of the ABS Group, placing it in the top ten of the best stands. A confirmation from the aluminium and fabric proposals developed by phygital perspective, represent a perfect union between functionality and aesthetics, as for ABS Group is a trendsetter and the main player at European level in the present and the future of retail.
CoWhat did you propose?
On this occasion, the Company has developed the structures in textile architecture with domotics, sensors and interactivity, to present its proposal for a contemporary sales point in which users are an active role of the setting up. This perfect fusion of physical and digital elements, from which “Phygital Retail”, has originated new proposal such as the newest dynamic interactive lightbox. These are aluminium and fabric walls, backlit with programmed LED’s system enable to give different animations which can be modified according to the human touch. The integrated audio system allows to broadcast music and sounds with the movement of the lights, in order to make the customer’s experience even more engaging. The proposals presented by ABS Group at Euroshop 2020 come from a complete fitting system to quickly carry out, without building works, experiential stores as well as business areas or museums: self-supporting backlit walls in aluminum and fabric with folding door, balancing or sliding to access the various spaces, fabric walls equipped with magnetic accessories, such as shelves, hangers and drawers, sound-absorbing and sound-insulating customized with printed graphics on fabric to enhance the environmental acoustic. All enriched with sliding and integrated monitors, showcases, tables and interactive screens to explore contents and easy purchase products, home automation technologies to remotely control various functions by APP, such as switching on, off, programming lights and sound diffusion of lightboxes.
Coming back to the shopfitting stands we are fascinated by Wanzl World, which presents an entire city with innovative shopping experience, updated technologies and interesting global solutions in line with the motto: WHAT CUSTOMERS WANT. The stand gathers small shops exploiting free spaces available in our cities and satisfy the needs of whole citizens and consumers.
Another stand of great interest was Visplay, whose theme was SHARED SPACES, that is, trying to gather different sectors in an innovative way, both for position and content.
In fact, the large and diaphanous environment is a mix of various and multisensory stimuli, all supported by customizable lighting system and flexible layout.
Being in the shopfitting sector, we took the opportunity to go back to our stand set up in Cefla and sound the intentions.
We asked some questions to Mr Giuseppe Marcante, Managing Director of Cefla Shopfitting:
What was the theme of your stand and how was it perceived by your customers?
The Cefla designers of Retail Design team have designed seven sales areas, equipped with utmost care according to the “You make me feel” concept, having a guiding thread the ergonomics, versatility and modularity of Cefla’s solutions for an attractive and personalized sales point. “Managing, Creativity and Innovation”: these are the keywords that have moved us towards more interesting solutions enable to respond to every market need, always competitive and adaptable of the store layout.
What are the focus products among your proposals?.
The perimeter and the exhibition areas of the Cefla Shopfitting stand offer the 3×3 modular system presented as a prototype in spite of last Euroshop edition, and, today, fully industrialized. A system that allows to dynamically plan every bespoke solution. To support the customer and the designers at the Cefla stand, a virtual configurator is operating which shows the Retailer the store in 3D vision, to create a customized project “live”. During the equipment of the stand much attention was paid to lighting developed in collaboration with Lucifero’s (a Cefla group company specializing in the design and construction of lighting fixtures), to offer emotional journey to visitors that places them at the center of the shopping experience. Among Cefla’s creations we found the Grow Unit, the high-tech “showcase”, designed for the indoor growth of microgreen through an irrigation and lighting system with LED lamps, born from the know-how of C-LED, Company of Cefla Group.
Going through I entered in a tourbillon of stands devoted to POP and communication materials, being enchanted by the greatest proposals both for materials and technologies.
To conclude, our particular experience at Euroshop 2020 has opened our view towards the retail sector trend.
Integration of services between online and offline, interaction and permeability for different product categories and also a return to the “proximity shop”, meeting point for inhabitants of the neighborhood.
All this to provide solutions to retail to facer the biggest competitor: Amazon!
by AN shopfitting magazine no.156 ©
