I have just returned from experiencing a wonderful NRF exhibition in New York.

NRF is considered to be the world’s biggest retail specific exhibition. CitiXsys was fortunate enough to be exhibiting at this prestigious event with our iVend omnichannel retail solution being the key focus.

It was a great experience to soak up the latest feelings around retailing.

Omnichannel retailing was an underlying recurring theme amongst many of the convention speakers, a topic that you know is close to my heart.

Mindy Grossman – CEO of HSNi and vice chair of NRF’s Board of Directors, shared her concept of “Boundaryless Retail”. What she called “Distributed Commerce” talked about how the customer is becoming the point of sale. Retailers will start to focus less on attracting customers to their own point of sale but meeting customers wherever they choose. With the advent of the “Buy Button” appearing across multiple platforms, Mindy believes that transacting with the customer wherever they choose heralds the next level of growth for retailers. Her sentiments have a direct link to the need to have systems that give retailers the capabilities to effectively meet the customer wherever they choose.

Many of the presentations highlighted the dramatically changing retail landscape and how the new era of retailing requires businesses to be more agile. Keynote speaker, Christian Davies, creative director of the Americas for FITCH talked about how the strict rules of retailing have been thrown out with a more flexible model adopted. One that allowed the retailer to react to changing needs. His sentiments talk to a range of omnichannel ideals such as mobile POS and being able to adapt to the multitude of different ways retailers can transact in the digital world.

As I come down from my NRF high I hope to share some more insights that can help retailers start making the steps to an omnichannel retailing way of life in 2016, Check out this space tomorrow for more insights from me.

To be continued…