Context: European Retailers Eye IoT

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Representatives from a number of retailers, including Dixons, Darty, Euronics and Bimeks, discuss the issues European retail faces in 2015 at a Context breakfast briefing, such as the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT).

Internet of ThingsAlso in attendance were vendors and distributors such as Lenovo, Acer, Samsung, AMD, Netgear, Webroot, the GTDC and Esprinet.

“IoT is one of the main topics for 2015, but the IoT landscape is complex, fragmented and in full motion," Euronics International president Hans Carpels says. "It is not an easy area to serve as a retailer.”

According to Carpels such complexity deters customers from making related acquisitions-- and as such retailers need to fully "explain the efficiency and the economic advantages.”

Another major issue retail faces is, of course, the online competition. One way to beat pure-play online retailers is differentiating factors, which allow brick-and-mortar players to get close to customers and justify the expenses of running physical stores.

"The whole raison d’etre of retail is to transform the ‘consumer’ into a ‘customer’-- that’s where the real value lies,” Darty CEO Regis Schultz says. “Our challenge is to recapture what makes our industry profitable by moving the mass of consumers to become customers that we truly know and understand.”

Go European Retailers Eye IoT Potential for 2015 (Context)