We must not forget that we have been through a rather unusual year which, even if it could have been the opportinity, did not necessarily accelerate disruptive innovation but rather led to the consolidation of online platforms and to the awareness of the need for omnichannel services for all players.
By Jérôme Malzac - Innovation Officer Micropole
I don't have the exact figures, but from a personal point of view, I found the show to be quite full in terms of the number of exhibitors, perhaps a little less in terms of the number of visitors (at least on the two days I was there).
The show is always quite well organised, with the main topics grouped together, which allows you to see at a glance which actors are present in each theme.
There have been years when topics such as interior design (furniture, shop fitting), marketing automation, ... were much more present, but not for this 2021 edition!
This year the themes present and visible were payment, marketplaces and automation. Even though these players are more numerous every time, the visual impact and the surface occupied during this 2021 edition were clearly in their favour!
Here are some of the trends, solutions or start-ups to remember for this edition:
More and more payment solutions!
With no less than sixty exhibitors, most of them French, the weight of payment solutions was siggnificant this year. From large companies to small start-ups, they all surfed on the new payment trends on online purchases, linked to the consequences of the health situation, with, in particular, "Buy Now, Pay Later", micro-payments and split payments.
Except that these alternative payment methods are no longer only present online and are now appearing in our brick-and-mortar shops.
This is the ambition of Klarna, whose stand attracted a lot of attention, which will invest massively in France this year with the hope of establishing itself as strongly as it has already done in the United States and in the countries of Northern Europe with its "3 times without charge" payment solution.
Several facts clearly show that this is no longer a trend but a real widespread use of autonomous or simplified devices that will replace the old payment methods.
Starting with the widespread use of vendor applications!
Following the example of Cegid, which is launching a sales app in Saas mode, there are several mobile sales and payment assistance solutions for a smoother shopping experience in shops by allowing intuitive guidance through different interfaces and sales functions.
Cegid's "Retail Live Store" solution is a suite of collaborative apps for shops. It works on both fixed and mobile sales terminals, regardless of the OS, and provides a sales assistant with all of the on-shelf checkout functionalities.
Finally, this year the place occupied by kiosk and screen display solutions seems to me to be more important than in other years, with more and more players.
On the other hand, strangely, many are still on touch screens, contrary to what I would have thought from the consequences of covid, without the real use of touchless and gesture interfaces.
There are increasing numbers of them every year, and I must admit that I have lost track of them all!
Even if each one has its specifics (or in any case, tries to put forward competitive advantages...), it would take a whole day to fully understand the differences and the interest of joining them all!
But sometimes you can have pleasant surprises!
And it was during my wanderings through this maze of stands dedicated to marketplaces that I discovered Achille, a marketplace solution dedicated to geolocated de-storage.
Short supply chains and local purchasing: a good idea in a world where responsible commerce is attracting more and more buyers.
This year's edition, like the Big Data trade show, does not revolutionize the landscape and uses of retail, but it does allow us to consolidate and validate the trends of previous years around marketplaces and payment methods.
