Retail

Downtown Paris is being protected with public money. Real estate company Semaest buys up space on behalf of the city of Paris and rents it out at at decent prices to retailers who fit into the neighbourhood. Emmanuelle Hoss presented her project at the GDI Retail Summit.

"During lockdown, when people were actually missing public spaces, they still chose not to use the traditional retail spaces. Because they’re not considered to be high quality public spaces anymore," says Kristian Villadsen, partner at urban strategy firm Gehl, in an interview.

The "Belt and Road" initiative is about economic influence and power, contended Bruno Maçães at the GDI Retail Summit. According to the politician, it helped create the landscape for China's e-commerce industry.

What does Covid-19 imply for retail? How do you build a successful urban farming company? And how do department stores hold their ground? Answers were provided by innovators and retail giants at the GDI Retail Summit from 10 to 11 September 2020. A summary.

"Belt and Road" visualises a new Chinese world order in which the US have disappeared, says Bruno Maçães, non-resident Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington and former Portuguese Secretary of State for European Affairs. Maçães will speak at the GDI Retail Summit on 11 September 2020.

The dematerialisation, demonetisation and democratisation of shopping has only just begun. The end of consumption as we know it is approaching. Silent commerce is one plausible future plot.

The Corona crisis is becoming a catalyst for new forms of cultivation,, such as urban farming and meat from cell cultures. But the technical infrastructure is still missing for many things. In an interview with the "Lebensmittel Zeitung", David Bosshart explains how Covid-19 has changed the way we eat.

Across Europe, besides isolated regional lockdowns, easing measures are being introduced. The summer holidays are beginning. A lot of things seem to be "normalising". But there are many unknowns: How will the global recession affect us? Are the supply chains reorganising? Who are the winners and losers of the crisis?

Dior or Saint Laurent: Matt Heiman has them all. With his startup, the Brit lends out luxury bags in London. At the GDI Retail Summit and in an interview, he explains why subscriptions are the business model of the future, even in the luxury market.

If there were winners during the coronavirus lockdown, they were e-commerce platforms and their ecosystems. Klarna is one of these winners. In a video and at the GDI Retail Summit, Klarna’s CMO David Sandström explains what it would look like if Gucci was a payment provider.