On November 17 and 18, Grup Idea attended MAPIC Innovation Forum 2020, the global meeting of innovation leaders in the retail real estate industry. This year, the retail sector has joined e-commerce in a 100% digital version with the intention of finding solutions through innovation, technology and digital transformation.
During the event, operators and retail experts debated how to reactivate this sector, which is particularly penalised worldwide by the restrictions related to the pandemic.
Create partnership between offline and online
Online commerce stands out as the tool to stimulate retail trade. During the talks organized within the framework of MAPIC 2020, the need to create partnership between offline and online, an intelligent network of cooperation, capable of intercepting the needs of a varied clientele in terms of preferences and behaviour was discussed.
The way to weave this partnership was precisely the subject of debate between real estate operators and retailers during the current edition. Some of the conclusions contemplate using digital solutions at all levels of sales, from digital marketing to data to physical area.
During this period of lockdown, companies have adapted faster than ever to applying internal and external digital tools to meet the changing needs of their consumers. An example is the use of Click & collect, the return in store or the massive use of QR codes to reduce paper consumption and update menus in the restaurant sector.
Retail Rebirth: the keyword for the post-Covid-19 period
Far from talking about the negative effects of the Covid19 crisis, good practices and opportunities were discussed in a new scenario for the sector. Some of the main players promoted focusing the strategy on omnichannel solutions, that is, integrating all the company’s online and offline sales channels. With this solution, in a complex and changing scenario like the current one, retailers make sure that they are responding to all possible consumers and capturing the entire scope of sales.
The pandemic has definitely changed the focus of retailers when we talk about innovation: the search for omnichannel, the integration of technology and the use of data are the trends that have accelerated the most in recent months and the design of spaces has to give response to the configuration of the new spaces.
For this reason, Grup Idea, in collaboration with the construction company Abessis and the digital agency Interfície, has launched OnOffTeam, as a new work methodology with the search for omnichannel as the basis of its operations. The objective of OnOffTeam is to provide a complete response to current market demands and to offer the possibility of working with a multidisciplinary team on a single project for the design of online and offline spaces.
In this new period, we are working to make retail stronger than ever and to bring this rebirth through digital solutions and space design adapted to the new times.
