Retail reunited - Retail Technology Show welcomes thousands of visitors as retail comes home to London Olympia

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Retail reunited - Retail Technology Show welcomes thousands of visitors as retail comes home to London Olympia.

Retail Technology Show, the flagship event that brings together Europe’s most forward-thinking retailers and leading tech innovators, welcomed thousands of senior retail professionals to the show, held over two-days at London’s Olympia on 26 and 27 April.

The thousands of senior retail professionals visiting Retail Technology Show were joined by 200+ technology vendors, exhibiting the latest innovations to drive the industry forwards, and over 90 retail luminaries, who took the biggest debates and hottest topics to the conference stage.  The speaker line-up - a veritable ‘who’s who’ of retail - included keynotes from New Look Chairman and ex-Sainsbury’s CEO Mike Coup, Dreams’ former CEO Mike Logue, Deliciously Ella’s founder Ella Mills, and Sam Jones of Gener8 with his investor, Tinie Tempah, as well as brands and retailers, including The Very Group, Amazon, M&S, Halfords and Morrisons.

And the breadth of innovation on display at the Retail Technology Show didn’t just stop with the 200+ technology suppliers exhibiting at the event.  As a one-stop shop for innovation, show features that championed best-of-breed solutions had been built-in to every aspect of the Retail Technology Show.  From a first-look collection of the latest tech that can deliver first-mover advantage to retailers in the Discovery Zone, to the Start-Up Safaris, which were curated by Baringa, and toured new technologies from high-octane start-ups that are set to disrupt the retail sector.

The celebration of innovation culminated in the winner of the 2022 Innovation Awards, sponsored by Google Cloud, being crowned at the BIG Retail Reunion Party on Day 1.  Green retail solution, Dayrize, was announced as the winner, selected from a shortlist of ten solutions from across the technology spectrum, having impressed the judges with its sustainable tech that helps consumers and businesses reduce their environmental impact. 

Matt Bradley, Event Director for the Retail Technology Show, commented: “We knew the appetite for the Retail Technology Show would make the event an unmissable one – after the turbulence and radical change of the past two years, the time was right for retail to reunite.  And Retail Technology Show proved to be the platform for reuniting the industry, setting a course for the transformational evolution needed for retail businesses to succeed in the new landscape.  With the outstanding innovation on display on the show floor, the brightest minds in retail on the conference stages and unlimited networking opportunities that you can only get from large format trade events, we were thrilled to have brought retail home to Olympia.”