The Forum, held at Sokolniki Exhibition and Convention Center brought together Russian and foreign online- and offline-retail experts, owners, top managers and specialists of retail chains, food, non-food, DIY, fashion, HoReCa, Internet-stores and banks from Russia and CIS countries, hardware and software vendors, representatives of market regulators. During the two-day work, «Online & Offline Retail 2018» was attended by 1,095 delegates. 83 speakers gave their presentations in the course of 9 sessions and 2 round tables. The event was supported by 75 participating companies.

Speakers shared their first-hand experience of developing effective business processes, brought up problems most essential to the industry, outlined ways of their overcoming, and made forecasts regarding further market evolution.

1. Participants of the first session “Retail 2018. Business in today’s realities” evaluated the current state of retail. The market situation remains complicated. Yet, there emerged first hopes the consumer demand will rise soon. To maintain the trend the industry that accounts for 20% of Russia GDP needs support, at least in the format of stable game rules. Such an opinion was delineated by Alexey Grigoriev, Vice-President for External Corporate Policy, METRO AG. 

2. The optimal solution to all problems accumulated in the industry would be the restoration of the self-regulation system. Further monopoly initiatives of the Government may result in long-term negative effects on the market, said Yuri Borisov, Development Director of the Retail Companies Association (ACORT). 

3. The expected introduction of Mercury system will not improve the products of animal origin’s traceability from farms to store shelves, yet it will harm all process participants. That is the view of Andrey Danilenko, Chairman of the National Union of Milk Producers (Soyuzmoloko). He believes, the system is way too complicated for the enterprises to adopt it, and it will cost too much. On top of that, any slightest system failure will cause the market collapse – sales will stop dead. Thus, it is not unlikely the Mercury introduction will be suspended again, and it will not be launched on July 1, 2018. 

4. There is an intensification of struggle for a place in the market between large and small retailers, which is in no small part due to grievous errors made during the implementation of a sound idea concerning the need to update the legal framework for the retail. Alexander Myshinsky, CEO, REAL Group, pointed out that in St. Petersburg, for instance, 15 local chains remain operative, out of 60 ten years back. 2 chains closed up, 2 more are awaiting their turn. The practice shows that amendments to the Law on Trade and other statutory instruments governing the industry make things even worse. 

5. Competition in retail becomes tougher. How can one remain in the ranks? Delegates learned a valuable lesson from a key speaker of Online & Offline Retail 2018, a legend of retail industry, and bestsellers’ author Harry Friedman. He is certain: every store needs to stick to the standards, compliance with which must be closely monitored, and the company strategy must be adjusted respectively on the fly.

6. A great deal of attention of PLUS-Forum participants was paid to customer loyalty – one of the most powerful tools retailers use to increase their sales. According to Dmitry Gladkov, Head of Customer Relations at Svyaznoy, the classical loyalty has outlived itself – a great number of market offers did not transform into quality, and their current value raises significant doubts. 

7. Studies show that customers expect retailers to make them personal offers. To make such offers, merchants need to know preferences of each individual. Georgy Makarov, Business Director, Edadeal, believes the hand-to-hand communication with the customer may be improved with the help of Cashback Edadeal, a product offers aggregator for everyday goods categories. The app has about 1 million unique users every month. 250 ths. people are active users of the tool – they buy products and receive their cashback. In turn, the app helps sellers to get data about the number of purchased items, average receipt, etc.

8. Retail is driven by technologies, yet they do not mean immediate business growth. Dmitry Bergelson, Managing Partner of Holmes & Moriarty, ex-Director for Business Development, Pyaterochka (X5 Retail Group), explained that such technologies should be selected by chief executives of a company, while their deployment must be the responsibility of qualified teams. Only then one can count upon success.

9. Technologies change the market impetuously. At the same time, the prospects of new-fangled solutions like “cashierless, checkout-line-free stores” from Amazon, remain vague. People need face-to-face communication, so not everyone is happy about completely robotized merchants, thinks Amelia Kallman, futurist, consultant, lecturer at Cambridge University.

10. The introduction of online-checkouts, which may be deemed successful in general, enabled retailers to gain access to enormous arrays of data about customer behavior. However, besides the opportunities the industry also faced security problem of using such data. The responsibility is high: 85% of shoppers will stop dealing with a company that lets an information leak.

The problem was brought up during the session «Security in retail: technology of protection against losses». Konstantin Kortnev, Senior Manager, Cybersecurity, PwC said that 7 out of 10 primary retail development points are subject to cyber risk.  These include web-sites for mobile devices, protected platforms, big data analytics, customer loyalty, brand history generation, Amazon strategy, health and welfare. 

11. Regional retailers will start dispensing cash at checkouts. The conclusion was reached by the participants of round table «Cash dispensing and other financial services in retail.  How to cash in on reducing a bank branch network?» 

Maria Shalina, Head of Telecommunication  and Financial Services, Euroset, observed that partner relations between retail business and banks becomes even more relevant during the period of crisis, when the latter optimize their branch networks energetically, among other things. She gave an example of long-term experience of Euroset’s cooperation with a range of leading Russian banks.

According to Elena Vinogradova, an independent expert, who summarized the discussion, the service might be most popular in Russian regions. At the same time, cash withdrawal fees at ATMs must differ from those at checkouts, so that the service would be profitable for retailers.

12. The cash exchange topic was also covered during PLUS-Forum speaker’s discussions. Daria Kapustina, Treasury Expert, AUCHAN, shared the chain’s experience of using recyclers and automated deposit machines (ADM) to handle cash. During a day a recycler makes it possible to settle accounts with shoppers, add floats, close a shift, quickly obtain results of cash recount, arrange cash collection at any convenient time, and quickly change cassettes, which reduces CIT time. According to Kapustina, the introduction of recyclers and ADMs reduces retailer’s costs by 50%. This became possible due to savings on cash recount and float funds.

13. Anna Tkacheva, Category Leadership Director, MARS WRIGLEY CONFECTIONERY, talked about the efficiency of self-service in retail. She said that 1 square meter of self-service allows a retailer to sell twice as much compared to trading floor. So it is very important to ensure the most convenient shopping and accelerate the purchase process, on the one hand, and to leverage resources, on the other. 

14. Online retail is gaining traction. The primary aria here is played by marketplaces. Experts believe that aggregators will own 40% of the market in a few years. 

During the session «e-Commerce. Key sales drivers and points of growth» Linar Khusnullin, Founder and CEO, KazanExpress, aka Russian AliExpress, said that the company is going to open distribution centers in four major cities of the Russian Federation.  Thus, the retailer is planning to expand its geography, staying ahead of China e-Commerce giant by ensuring a same or next day delivery.

15. Armen Manukyan, Head of Digital Services Development, Russian Export Centre, draws attention to Russia’s 11th rank in global eCommerce volumes. The speaker was sure a significant problem faced by Russian companies attempting to enter the international eCommerce market is the lack of knowledge in this area. The knowledge is available for free by addressing the Russian Export Center. According to A. Manukyan, our fellow countrymen are already selling various types of goods on foreign marketplaces – from refrigerators to «Game of Thrones» series knives. At the beginning of this year the REC launched virtual showrooms with Russian goods on popular Asian marketplaces like Tmall, JD, 1688, Lazada and Rakuten.

16. During a special round table Russian Post announced the launch of locally disruptive services in 2018. Denis Shestakov, Head of Mail-Order Business, Russian Post, said that «courier collection» service will be launched in May – couriers will pick up all parcels and will deliver them to production facilities that the company considers one of the growth drivers. «Courier Online Plus» service will start in summertime: express delivery of parcels with enhanced responsibility, introduction of option to pay for delivered goods with a bank card. 

17. eBay and Russian Post talked about the integration of their services for exporters. Ilya Kretov, General Manager, eBay Russia & Emerging Markets Europe, assured it will be a simple, convenient and intuitive product that will help Russian exporters send goods purchased at eBay to international customers. Sellers will select their preferable methods of online payment, go to a post office and hand over orders less than in 30 seconds.

In the near future we will offer for your attention a detailed review of presentations made during Online & Offline Retail 2018 conference.

Also, the Forum featured a most representative annual exhibition of professional equipment and technologies from major Russian and foreign companies.

Newland EMEA, Global Sponsor of Online & Offline Retail 2018, demonstrated brand new solutions for business automation. HR3251RU Marlin II, a unique scanner aroused particular interest. Its dedicated algorithm and firmware are optimized to read PDF417 USAIS codes at the highest level. At a very reasonable price, the scanner reliably reads even heavily worn out excise labels! Participants and guests of the showroom gave big points to NQuire1000 Manta, a 10" interactive kiosk/price-checker, and a new DCT МТ90 Orca powered by Android 7.

Сheckpoint Systems introduced original security systems for shopping floors. Their solutions are primarily aimed at large retail chains. The company presented an entire product line of sensors to be located at packing boxes and individual items. Unique solutions that PLUS-Forum participants and guests witnessed for the first time included sensors that could be placed at the neck of absolutely any bottle, regardless of its configuration.  Company representatives named as a significant advantage of the solution its ability to be used in the production cycle at the time of the product release. 

A smart fitting room was demonstrated at the company’s booth. Once installed in a store, it eradicates shoplifting: dishonest shoppers will not be able to sneak a magnet into the fitting room to remove clothes sensor.

 

Prosoft-Biometrics introduced biometrical identification solutions. According to the company representatives, one of the major task the developers had to solve was the personnel work time tracking and employee identification. This is a special concern for shift-based working hours. The advantages of the company’s solutions include not only identification by fingerprints, but also by palm-vein pattern and RFID cards.

Also, the company demonstrated a terminal operated by scanning a fingerprint. This type of solution offers a number of technological advantages, including the possibility to monitor individual seller plans, sale confirmation, financial operations, approval of warehouse operations (stock-taking, write-offs, etc.). 

SUZOHAP’s smart coin handling system demonstrated at the exhibition can accept bulk coins. This is the world’s first cash acceptance device that can be integrated into various systems on different markets, including self-service checkouts, money-changing machines, parking meters, kiosks and vending machines. 

Apart from biometrics technologies, the exhibition of dedicated business solutions from major Russian and foreign companies, provided an opportunity to get acquainted with financial technologies for retail, individual payment solutions, services of banks and fiscal data operators.

A full report on solutions, products and technologies introduced during PLUS-Forum Exhibition 2018 will be available at the information portal Retail-Loyalty.org in the near future.

During the event video and photo coverage was performed, and speakers’ presentations and interviews with the Forum participants were recorded. Soon, videos and photos will be available at the information portal www.plus-forum.com in Photo and Video sections. Within days all delegates that completed PLUS-Forum questionnaire will get access to all presentations via a link sent to the e-mail address specified in the questionnary. 

Newland EMEA was the Global Sponsor of the Forum.  

General Sponsors of the Forum: Alfa-Bank, Checkрoint Systems, SUZOHAPP, Napoleon IT. 

Cocktail sponsor: MultiCard.

Major sponsors: ePN and Dynamic Yield, MLP, BIFIT, MPASS, Trade Ease, Arvato, OFD.RU, Pilot, The Friedman Group, Halva card.

PLUS-Forum partners: Scantobuy, Gett Taxi, Dreamkas, SDEK, Equipment, Azur Pos, GoodsForecast, ECOMMPAY, chekonline, Orencard, bestplace, Raiffeisenbank, SCANTEK, Interactive Group, Antor, Astral.OFD, DSSL, OFD-I fiscal data operator, IT PING, BAK International, Plastic Online, Sproot, PAY.TRAVEL, MAYKOR-BTE, Arinteg, APPEX, ForecastNow, OFD Platform, Home Credit Bank, Exponea, Mail.ru, Europeum and OKI, Nextail Labs S.L.U. and StartupFabric, Dataphone, DEEP2000, ZEBRA, Smart Continental, Vocord, Profi Manager, Prosoft-Biometrics, Intelligentemails, Tessis, Trinitygroup, Video Analysis Technologies, RightScan.

Tea sponsor: Teatone. 

Coffe sponsor: Alta Roma

Cheese sponsor: Aton Milk Products.

Technical Sponsor: IMS.

Logistics sponsor: UPS. 

Associate partners: NADT, RATEK, GS1 Russia, Goodsmatrix, A-KLIK, CCI, AKAR (Russian Association of Communication Agencies), RAMU (Russian Association of Marketing Services), IAB, National Payment Council, National Payment Association,  ICXC, Russian Co-Marketing Association, International Retail Marketing Association - POPAI Russia, Managers Association, Rusprodsoyuz, PRO Fashion.

Media partners: E-Pepper, «Communications Newsletter», «Warehouse and Technologies» magazine, «Logistics» magazine, information portals «Russian Exporters» and «Logirus».

The Steering Committee of the Fifth International PLUS-Forum «Online & Offline Retail 2018» expresses gratitude to all participants! See you during the Sixth PLUS-Forum to be held on April 10-11, 2019, the registration is open already.