Home of Retail, RetailDetail’s new knowledge platform, officially opened on 7 June. Below, you will see the first images of a day filled with tours, workshops, seminars and a festive reception.
Future of shopping
Home of Retail is a unique co-creation platform that unites retailers, manufacturers and suppliers to work on the shopping experience of the future. Store companies need support in an rapidly changing world, now more than ever. Antwerp alderman, Koen Kennis, officially opened the knowledge center and rejoiced in Home of Retail’s choice to locate in Antwerp, a leading shopping city.
The 1,200 sqm experience area, called anyVille, is Home of Retail’s centerpiece and a showcase for visitors to have a full-sensory experience about the future of shopping. It starts out in a futuristic apartment filled with intelligent equipment, like the Amazon Home voice assistant and Samsung’s smart refrigerator. The pop-ups in the shopping street has a barber and coffee shop of the future and a complete virtual reality store. A full body scan perfectly measures your clothing sizes and a wide range of applications have been installed in the department store: robots, interactive mirrors, 3D printers, analytical tools to map consumer behaviour, …
Improve competitiveness
Home of Retail is much more than just a visitor center. It also researches, publishes white papers and translate knowledge and experience into practical examples through expert groups and workshops led by accredited consultants. “Future of Shopping” vzw (not-for-profit organization), filled with retailers that that want to tackle challenges together, helps manage Home of Retail. DIY Chain Hubo’s CEO, Erwin Van Osta, is chairman of the vzw.
“We unite retailers, partners, scale-ups, universities, experts, organizations, cities and communities to work towards the future together in an attempt to improve their competitiveness”, RetailDetail’s co-founder, Jorg Snoeck, said. “The timing is perfect following the eCommerce boom and the new wave of digitization (artificial intelligence, robots, augmented and virtual reality). Retailers cannot miss out on this revolution.”
