NRF 2023: what I saw and learned in New York

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in NRF (National Retail Federation 2023), the world’s largest retail fair in New York!

What an incredible event! I was able to meet extraordinary people, be together with clients and business partners with the common goal of absorbing innovation, new trends and preparing ourselves for the future.

It was fantastic to be making our debut as exhibitors alongside so many good people, with admirable colleagues and professionals. It was an intense week, with lots of networking, exchange and new learning that provided us with very valuable experiences, learning that we hope to soon be applying in so many new projects and initiatives with our partners and clients.

Some insights:

Self checkout: it’s no longer a trend but a reality. Based on the amount of demonstrations now using shopping carts with precision scales and tablets for checkout, I see this is the next trend in grocery.

Autonomous store: Amazon brought us the technology 4 or 5 years ago and even so, it never stops innovating in this front. Payment and store access now relies on palm biometrics, we can already forget our cell phone at home when going shopping.

Back to basics: I saw a lot of technological innovation, from holograms to hyper-realistic robots, but what caught my attention the most is the number of people commenting on “doing the basics well”. It’s time to revisit that “old hat” technology and make sure we’re using it correctly.

Digital-first: The current strategy might be to prioritize digital, but contrary to what you might think, it’s not only digital or only physical, the perfect marriage is phygital. The pandemic showed us that as much as we can adapt quickly to digital, we are sociable, we like to relate and have experiences with our favorite brands, so it’s clear that digital doesn’t survive without physical, or at least it’s not exponentially enhanced.

Data-driven: Another of the many concepts talked about for years, with more and more practical demonstrations of use and the power of when it’s done right. A data-driven culture to better know the customer and their desires makes any campaign with segmentation much more assertive, with personalization as a strong weapon, giving the customer the experience of being unique.

Frictionless: For me this is the trend of the moment! All the technology and innovation in the world is useless if you don’t have a good conversion journey. A frictionless journey is what will make the difference, especially in checkout processes, where the final moments are the most impactful for customer loyalty.

Thank you Compass.uol for the opportunity and a HUGE thank you to our marketing team that organized everything with so much care!

To those who want to exchange more experiences about the event, technology and innovation, I’ll be happy to receive your message!