The Retail Technology Show 2024 occurred this year from April 24th-25th at the Olympia London and included over 120 speakers and 12,000+ retail professionals! The LS Retail team was there showcasing our solutions for retail, food service, and hospitality, and had a great time meeting with partners and customers from around the world. Let’s take a look at the highlights and takeaways from the event:
This was the largest Retail Technology Show to date
This year had the largest turnout in Retail Technology Show history with 400+ exhibitors spread throughout two halls – and it was clear from the foot traffic that there were more attendees than there have been since the show’s post-pandemic return! “Everyone was buzzing about the busy atmosphere,” says David Joyce, Solution Sales Executive at LS Retail, “It was a lot more than last year, and this sentiment seemed to be echoed throughout.”
On the event floor, there were numerous innovative technologies being showcased, such as interactive 3D holograms that allow retailers to display their brand and products in visually captivating ways – contributing to the recent shift to “phygital” and immersive in-store experiences.
There were also attendees from all kinds of verticals and industries, such as fashion, sports, entertainment, health and beauty, restaurants, and even some institutions in the public service sector. The LS Retail team welcomed people from all over the world at our booth, including visitors from Mexico, Nigeria, Cypress, Ireland, Lebanon, UK, and more.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) was the hottest topic this year
Unsurprisingly, talks about the future of AI in retail were extremely popular. There were several sessions present at the show this year surrounding generative AI and other similar innovations as businesses continue to discuss the impact of AI tools and how they can be used to improve operations.
During a keynote panel discussion titled Increasing Competitive Advantage by Embracing the AI Revolution, Nikki Baird, Vice President of Strategy at Aptos, touched on the responsibility of retailers to keep up with the development of artificial intelligence as models evolve over time: “My piece of advice is you can’t set it and forget it, you have to constantly reevaluate,” she told the panel.
Apart from AI, there were also many sessions about customer loyalty, sustainability, loss prevention, employee retention, and payment strategies – all concerns that retailers have as we move forward into the year.
Retailers are still exploring self-checkout and self-scanning options
Many attendees were interested in self-checkout and self-scanning technologies, including our Self-checkout for retail and ScanPayGo solutions. As retailers strive to find more ways to encourage loyalty, there’s been a lot of emphasis around the importance of customer-facing technology and giving consumers a better choice of checkout options.
“There was a lot of curiosity about our self-checkout and mobile self-scanning solutions,” says Andrej Zajec, Technical Sales Executive at LS Retail, “And many visitors were also impressed with the functionality in LS Central, such as replenishment, and how it can all be connected with one solution.”
Excitement for unified business management software
As retailers continue to consider innovations that can make their – and their customers’ – lives easier, more and more businesses are realizing the value of an end-to-end retail management system. There was a lot of interest from attendees regarding LS Central, our unified business management software that brings together sales, financials, inventory, eCommerce, customer loyalty, self-checkout, and more, in a single platform.
“Quite a few people said they had heard about us and wanted to learn more about our software,” says Waddah Laham, Regional Vice President for MEA & India at LS Retail, “It was very exciting to see people come to our booth looking specifically for our solution.”
Didn’t get the chance to meet with us at the Retail Technology Show? No problem! Contact us to learn more about how our LS Central software solutions can improve your business operations.
Or if you want to keep posted on where LS Retail will go next – check out our event page for all the latest information about upcoming conferences and shows. And don’t forget about conneXion 2024 in Reykjavik, Iceland from May 13th-15th! Will we see you there?
