Blog
July 6, 2022
A big class reunion was promised for the 10th anniversary of the K5 Future Retail Conference in Berlin. We believe this promise was fully kept. Once again this year, retailers, founders, brand providers, and industry experts gathered at the most important industry event for e-commerce to exchange ideas.
The varied program with many exciting presentations and sessions focused on practical knowledge exchange with numerous concrete use cases. Industry observations, trends, forecasts, and provocative theories were discussed intensively—true to the motto #LearnFromTheBest.
Starting with a bang: provocative theories to ponder
A platform for e-commerce experts thrives on the free exchange of new ideas and thought-provoking theories. The most important theories were put forward on the very first day in the first session:
- Retention marketing will become the winning strategy: Although still underestimated today, retailers will invest significantly more in the future to retain their loyal customer base for their own brand in the long term.
- Achieving success with MACH architecture: The targeted use of modern e-commerce solutions based on the MACH principle (microservices, API-first, cloud-native, headless) meets today’s requirements and will continue to do so tomorrow.
- Product and service appeal before marketing: Better photos, more attractive packaging, and strong service offerings form the basis. And yet, without marketing, every product is “just” a product.
While the focus in recent years has been primarily on the rapid growth of marketplaces, this year it became clear that there are ways for innovative medium-sized companies to hold their own against large marketplaces. Malte Polzin, CEO of STEG Electronics, explained exactly how this can work and what the difficulties are for medium-sized companies.
There’s always room in the niche: customer loyalty is key
STEG Electronics is part of the PCP.CH Group, which has been active in online retail since 1998. The Swiss multichannel provider of home electronics and computers has established itself on the market with 17 specialist stores and the online technology store techmania.ch, primarily because it consistently focuses on a high-quality and wide range of products, which is always up to date thanks to automation.
Most medium-sized companies cannot differentiate themselves from large, established marketplaces on price. However, there are other ways to successfully compete in the market. In addition to a broad, curated product range tailored to their target group, private labels and strong customer service are also important pillars for being regarded as a valued retailer by end customers. Depending on the strategy, it can also make sense to offer certain product groups on established marketplaces, because: “Not everyone has to be a marketplace.”
In this sense, the most frequently quoted statement at the K5 trade fair by Johannes Altmann, CEO of Shoplupe GmbH and responsible for the platform at K5, can also be seen: “Valuable companies have real customers and work on relationships.”
K5 2022 was an exciting trade fair with a wealth of expertise, fascinating insights into a wide variety of companies, and many interesting visitors. Once again this year, the organizers deserve a big compliment and thank you for a successful conference. We are already looking forward to being back at K5 2023.