Analysis: What’s in store at retail trade fair EuroShop?

Despite its name, EuroShop, which comes around once every three years, is global in focus. This contrasts with its North American rival, dubbed GlobalShop, which takes place annually and is doggedly US in its outlook, with a bit of Canada thrown in to add a sense of the international.

Both shows are for those in the business of building, fitting out and displaying merchandise in shops. Or put another way, EuroShop, which runs from February 16 to 20, is something of an occasion if you are seeking a snapshot of everything that is available around the world to make a shop look good.

The venue is Düsseldorf and the vast halls that comprise the ‘Messe’ are where this exhibition takes place. These are so big that there are shuttle buses to take you from one part of the show to another and for first timers who are visiting for a day or two, this is a jaunt that requires careful planning.

When a visitor arrives at EuroShop the scale of it could be quite overwhelming. There is a hall filled with cash registers and supermarket checkouts, another for shopping trolleys and one reserved solely for mannequins. Whatever the particular area of in-store retail that the visitor is part of, it’s a racing certainty that there will be something to look at. The challenge is to narrow down the hunt. Two types of visitor even once the halls that are relevant to the visitor have been located, it’s worth spending a little time poring over the exhibitor guide in order to make a more targeted visit.

There are different types of visitor to EuroShop. The first are those who come to the show to catch up with their suppliers. From this perspective things are positive, as it is possible to have meetings with the majority of the companies you deal with in a day or so if forward-planning is undertaken.

The other group are those who come in search of novelty and inspiration, hoping to get an idea of what store fit-out best practice looks like. Somewhere between the two are those who pitch up in Düsseldorf in order to do a bit of both.

With judicious thought, the EuroShop trip needn’t even be that expensive. It can readily be effected in a day if early enough flights are caught. But as promoters everywhere tend to say: “Book early to avoid disappointment.”

The later you leave things, the pricier it will be and Düsseldorf’s hoteliers know how to pile on the charges when showtime comes around.The big question - other than keeping up to date with what’s out there in the world of store interiors - is what is new at EuroShop 2014?

Among the ‘hot topics’ that the organisers say visitors should expect when they visit are staging, technology and architecture and design. For those in the business of visual merchandising, staging would seem to be the most pertinent. “Product presentation is yesterday. Product staging is today and tomorrow,” the organisers claim. Maybe so, and there are those who might claim it is sophistry trying to insert a flyleaf between the two, but it gives an idea of how the show tries to look at things from a different perspective.

With this in mind, EuroShop also features a supporting programme of conferences and forums. Retail Week readers might feel inclined to beat a path to the ‘Trend Forum for Store Planning and Design, Interiors and Visual Merchandising’, which takes place on February 17.

This sits well with EuroShop’s ‘Designer Village’ in Hall 12, where names such as Dalziel & Pow and Green Room from the UK, and Malherbe from Paris, will be showing their wares. Hall 12 is a good place to start a EuroShop visit as not only does it house store design companies displaying their wares, but many of the big Euronames in store fit-out have chosen to take space here as well.

The other must-visit for the visual merchandising community is Hall 4, where most of the big mannequin manufacturers will display what’s new and how it is likely to affect fashion store interiors in 2014 and beyond.

The truth of the matter is that EuroShop is a leviathan of the retail world. And in almost all halls, with the possible exception of Hall 16 (refrigeration equipment, for specialist tastes only), there is almost certainly something that will catch the eye. So at the risk of a using a shoe leather, it really is worth a long walk through the halls. EuroShop takes place only once every three years and is therefore something of a Mecca as far as the store construction and fit-out sector is concerned.

The phrase ‘did you see (name-drop as appropriate) at EuroShop?’ is used as a common point of reference by many in the industry in the period between one EuroShop and the next. The inference, it would appear, is that anyone who is anybody will have attended and will probably have a view on what has been on show. This is the one trade fair that should be on everybody’s dance card if you’re interested in retail and all that goes with it.