MAPIC, the International Market for Retail Real Estate, has chosen Online-to-Offline (O2O) as its central theme for the 2016 event taking place in Cannes, France, November 16-18. Whether from store to website or website to store, O2O is where online and offline retail meet.
Power in Numbers: 700 Exhibitors and 1,400 Brands
MAPIC gathers more than 8,000 international participants, including over 2,000 retailers for three days of exhibition, conferences and networking events targeting all types of retail property. MAPIC is attended by prominent brands including Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria’s Secret, Bath and Body Works, Signature Levi Strauss, Beverly Hills Polo Club, Dreamworks Animation, Equinox Fitness Clubs and nearly 1,400 others.
Why Online to Offline?
MAPIC Director Nathalie Depetro explains, “Today, omni-channel is at the heart of retail strategy, positioning the physical point of sale as the vital component. This means that pure online retail players are increasingly looking at brick & mortar trading, in the wake of Amazon opening its first physical bookstore in Seattle. We want to make this profound change the focus of discussions at MAPIC by selecting O2O as MAPIC’s main theme for this 22nd edition.”
In recent years, e-commerce has grown remarkably on an international scale. Yet 90% of sales in the United States still occur in real shops. To continue to grow, pure online players must enter the world of real estate, which will gradually blur the boundary between physical and virtual shops.
For pure players wishing to open a physical store, MAPIC is a gateway to the world of real estate, enabling them to address three major new challenges: finding the right location, choosing the most relevant format for its site and promoting the retail space to attract and retain customers.
This year, MAPIC is launching a new ‘Trends Hub’ pavilion to meet the challenges facing new pure online retail players. As an exhibition and conference area, this pavilion will bring together experts in ‘retailtainment’ and shed light on how to promote points of sale and drive up traffic. To register for this event, visit www.mapic.com.
About Reed MIDEM:
Founded in 1963, Reed MIDEM is an organizer of professional, international markets that are essential business platforms for key players in the sectors concerned. These sectors are MIPTV, MIPDOC, MIPCOM, MIPCANCUN and MIPJUNIOR for the television and digital content industries, MIDEM for music professionals, MIPIM, MIPIM Asia, MIPIM UK, and MIPIM Japan for the real estate industry and MAPIC, Retail Real Estate Market brought by MAPIC in Shanghai and MAPIC Italy for the retail real estate sector.
About Reed Exhibitions:
Reed MIDEM is a division of Reed Exhibitions, the world’s leading event organizer, with over 500 events in 43 countries. In 2015 Reed brought together over seven million active professionals from around the world generating billions of dollars in business. Today Reed events are held throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa and organized by 41 fully-staffed offices. Reed Exhibitions serves 43 industry sectors with trade and consumer events. It is part of the RELX Group plc, a world-leading provider of information solutions and analytics for professional and business customers across industries. www.reedexpo.com
