Retail Technology: From ESL to viPOS

Umdasch Shopfitting has been building successful stores of all sizes since 1868. The family-owned Austrian company presented its EuroShop customers and guests with a place of inspiration for the future of retail and sparked discussions in a down-to-earth atmosphere.

There was plenty of space for ideas on how the digital and the analog can function together. True to this year’s fair motto “love digital, love analogue,” Umdasch illustrated how digital solutions can find their way in retail stores.

The stand’s height and its semitransparent white curtains around six meters high billowing slowly in the front ensured it dominated the scene even from afar.

A balustrade of white-varnished, three-layered wood motivated visitors passing by to take advantage of the seating it offered for a short break from the hectic bustle of the fair and to take a look inside the stand.

Right from the entrance, the store makers from Umdasch welcomed guests to the booth and invited them on a tour of the analog and digital world of shopfitting.

Divided into four divisions

All the retail world’s segments were divided into four divisions at the booth, namely lifestyle, food, premium, and digital retail.

Lifestyle retail: The Lifestyle Tower was designed with just as much diversity as the projects and achievements of the division itself.

An arrangement of 17 single-crafted showpieces showed how innovative applications are used to manufacture tailor-made solutions for stores.

With food retail, on the other hand, it quickly became apparent that this was about much more than the decor of the classic food trade.

Three different towers illustrated the wide range of possibilities, from classic food, through health stores, to beauty expertise.

High quality and concentrated creativity combined with digital components embodied the third division at EuroShop: premium retail.

It featured a unique exhibit in table format: Visitors could play with a table full of premium materials in the form of small art works and use integrated displays to view the associated references on the spot.

Love digital, love analogue

True to the fair’s motto, the message “love digital, love analogue” was omnipresent within the service portfolio of the fourth division, digital retail.

The pieces presented as part of this youngest of Umdasch’s business units were therefore integrated into the individual shop fitting exhibits for the lifestyle, food, and premium retail divisions, giving guests ideas about how digital signage, electronic shelf labeling, interactive applications, and smart tracking can be integrated with added value at the POS. They were scatted throughout the entire stand.

Around 60 ESL (electronic shelf labeling) tags of different sizes were mounted along the balustrade with short information, numbers, and greetings.

The Smart Tracking Analysis Tool, on the other hand, monitored the stand, counted visitors, and analyzed their gender and age.

In the restaurant area, visitors could use interactive menus on tablets to check their orders and see additional information. ESL tags made it possible to reserve seats.

Price checkers were also available on site: Scanning the reference tags brought up further information on the projects.

Umdasch also stressed digital signage, which visitors discovered on a collagen-like wall with screens of different sizes near the back of the stand.

The Austrian company presented its service modules there using emotive images. Last but not least, the know-how cinema had a 12-screen viPOS wall, which featured different use cases and played the company’s promotional movie.