'On-line' To Converge With 'Off-line' At MAPIC 2013

PARIS, Sept. 24, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Omni-channel retailing strategies will be a highlight of MAPIC 2013, where technological innovation that is encouraging retailers to reinvent themselves will be widely showcased and discussed.

One of the trends of the 19^th edition of MAPIC, the International Retail Property Market, will be that more and more retailers, shopping centre developers and cities are equipping themselves to rise to this challenge by promoting their omni-channel strategies.

Organised by Reed MIDEM, MAPIC will be held in Cannes from 13 to 15 November.

"Multi-channel is now giving way to the new era of omni-channel. Industry professionals have realised that they must not think in terms of separate retailing channels. To remain competitive, they are now promoting synergies between bricks and mortar outlets and e-commerce. This convergence of 'on-line' and 'off-line' is a powerful way to involve customers more fully into the brand universe and offer them new consumer experiences. This trend will be one of the key topics of the MAPIC Digital Summit this year," says Nathalie Depetro, Director of MAPIC.

To promote this convergence of real and virtual, brands and shopping centres now install interactive media directly in the structure and development of their outlets. More and more touch screens, digital storefronts, QR codes and digital animation and information points are appearing in retail venues. A MAPIC regular for many years, the English developer Land Securities Properties Limited is exemplary in this respect with its Trinity Leeds project inaugurated in March 2013. Equipped with a panoply of touch screens and Wi-Fi connections, this shopping centre simplifies the customer experience, focuses on communication, and boosts its overall attractiveness: four million customers have visited the centre since it opened.

Among initiatives that are driving omni-channel strategies, 'click and collect' is one of the new consumption patterns that blend real with virtual, whereby consumers identify a product's availability on the internet, order it, and then pick it up later in a store. The Galeries Lafayette group (France), which is attending MAPIC, exemplified this trend by launching its 'click & collect' facility in its department stores in Lyon, Nice and Strasbourg. The company has built on this success by changing the layout of its stores and developing special areas with fitting rooms and sales corners.

Another growing phenomenon is 'showrooming' in shops and shopping centres. This new consumer practice involves testing products in stores and comparing their prices so that they can later buy online – a trend that could threaten sales that are usually generated at the point of sale. Jean-Francois Gomez, Senior Innovation & Business Development Manager, Digital Commerce & Marketing at Microsoft (France), Guillaume Rio, Technology Trends Manager at L'Echangeur by Laser (France) and Fabio Porreca, CEO at Svicom Sviluppo Commerciale (Italy), will explain this new trend and highlight the options available for retailers to take advantage of it during a MAPIC conference entitled "Innovation into retail's world: facts and figures."

Although international brands and shopping centres are equipped to rise to this challenge, shops in the city centre are more vulnerable. City representatives, however, can be a powerful ally in helping their smaller shops thrive in these digital times. Some cities such as Nantes (France), also attending MAPIC, are proactively supporting their local retailers. In the case of Nantes, a website Mavilleenrose.com has been launched with an online magazine that tracks the latest trends and news about local retailers and holds special sales for a selection of its local shops. Enabling shops to take these digital tools fully on board will be discussed at the MAPIC Digital Summit (by invitation), which will be held before the event opens on Tuesday, 12 November.

The Summit will be organised as a series of roundtables bringing together retail property professionals and digital industry experts to discuss the challenges of an omni-channel world. Among the key guests at these debates will be CapitaMalls Asia (China) Obi (Russian Federation), Klepierre Segece (France) and Whilhelm & Co (Belgium). The speakers will include experts from the consulting firms Invalio, Convergences, L'Echangeur by Laser, Hub Institute, major industry players such as Clear Channel, CBRE and researchers from the University of Carlo Cattaneo (Italy).

As Chris Igwe, Head of Retail, France & Senior Director, EMEA at CBRE, explains: "Following a unique piece of retail research where 10 000 consumers across 10 European countries were surveyed 'How We Shop – Inside the Minds of Consumers,' CBRE is carrying out a further study to better understand how this fast paced digital world is being integrated, or not, into the strategy of tenants and landlords. Key findings will be revealed at the Digital Summit."

Jean-Francois Gomez from Microsoft will close the event with an overview of coming changes in retailing and consumption patterns.

Find out more about the MAPIC Digital Summit here.

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For editors:

Founded in 1963, Reed MIDEM is a leading organiser of professional, international tradeshows. Reed MIDEM events have established themselves as key dates in professional diaries. The company hosts MIPTV, MIPDOC, MIPCOM, and MIPJUNIOR for the television and digital content industries, MIDEM for music professionals, MIPIM, MIPIM Asia  and MAPIC for the property and retail real estate sectors. 

Reed MIDEM is a division of Reed Exhibitions, the world's leading events organizer with over 500 events in 39 countries. In 2011 Reed brought together six million active event participants from around the world generating billions of dollars in business. Today Reed events are held throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa and organized by 33 fully staffed offices. Reed Exhibitions serves 44 industry sectors with trade and consumer events and is part of the Reed Elsevier Group plc, a world-leading publisher and information provider and a FTSE 100 company. 

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SOURCE Reed MIDEM