The EuroShop Retail Design Awards will take place on the evening of 5 March at EuroShop 2017, the tenth occasion that EHI Retail Institute and Messe Düsseldorf will reveal the most eye-catching innovations in retail store design.
This year, a total of 80 nominations were received from 27 countries. Ahead of the awards ceremony this Sunday, EHI shopfitting expert Claudia Horbert examines some of the most current trends in eye-catching retail design.
As she explains, a 'mix' of materials are increasingly being used in-store, "characterised by combinations of different styles, colours and materials. Although wood remains one of the most popular materials, it is frequently used together with bricks, tiles or concrete. Scaffolding also finds a use: e.g. for shop-in-shop solutions or in-store pop-ups.
"These contrasts are intended to create excitement and keep customer attention at a high level."
In addition, she notes that creative and unusual visual merchandising is gaining traction. "Theatrical staging additionally makes it possible to set many individual accents in the framework of standardised store concepts," she says. "Retailers thus can create stunning presentations with reasonable effort and expense."
There is also an increase in the use of digital POS and touch screens - "online services feature tailor-made offers, and interactive configurations enable customised design" - and the emergence of more 'curated shopping' or 'storytelling' in the in-store environment.
"Many stores seek to create stories of their own using their origins, their location, a product, their brand or their curated collections," says Horbert. "Curated shopping is one of the major trends in shopfitting. With a pre-selected range of products extending across different categories and product lines, retailers offer their customers new worlds for different lifestyles.
"New curated departments that constantly present the best and most original international brands already have been established by some retailers – and that within weeks, if not days."
Further information about the EuroShop Retail Design Awards can be found here: www.euroshop-award.com
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
