NRF Europe trade show honors retail innovators with inaugural awards

An evolution of the annual Paris Retail Week, the NRF Europe trade show, held in Paris from September 16 to 18, presented its inaugural awards to innovative players in the retail sector.

On Tuesday, September 17, the inaugural edition of the show enjoyed a busy first day, buoyed by the transformation of this season’s opening event, held in Halls 4 and 6 at Porte de Versailles. Rebranding under the NRF banner (the New York show created by the National Retail Federation) appears to have attracted significant numbers of international visitors, according to professionals interviewed on the second day of the event.

On Tuesday evening, the Seamless Unified Retail Store award went to the Dutch company New Black for its mobile point-of-sale systems, which connect sales associates in physical stores. The prize for store design, innovation and technology went to the French company Vusion for its store equipment and software.

The Spanish company If Returns won in the Logistics and Supply Chain category for its easy-to-integrate product returns solution. Mir won in the Marketplace Expansion category, while the French company Lyzi took the prize for innovations in payments.

Another French company, Loyaltee, was awarded the prize for customer service tools (CRM) for its automated assistance solution. The prize for the intelligent use of data went to the Belgian company Live Crew, which enables stores to measure lost sales.

The start-up and innovation award went to Claim.me. The Berlin-based company offers retailers a solution for handling claims in the event of lost, damaged or delayed parcels. The solution has already been adopted by Tamaris, Asics and Flaconi.