Held in Cannes from November 13 to 15, Mapic allows participants to find new retail sites, discover promising territories and learn more about the changing global retail property market. Laura Heywood explores this year’s highlights.

Mapic

Mapic in brief

Mapic is the key meeting point for retailers looking for partners, as well as property developers and owners seeking retailers to enhance their sites. From November 13 to 15, tailored meetings, expert-led conferences and a premium exhibition will take place at Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France. The global retail property show is specifically aimed at industry leaders and covers all types of retail property from high streets and shopping centres to factory outlets, leisure areas and transit zones.

Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) are the rising stars of international retail because of their strong growth potential. That’s according to the organisers of global retail property show Mapic, which this year will be shining the spotlight on what it believes are the four most promising retail markets in the world.

“The boom in consumption in these markets, driven by an expanding middle class and a growing urban population of young people, is opening up significant opportunities for retail real estate professionals,” says Mapic director Nathalie Depetro.

“These ‘new’ consumers operate at the cutting edge of technology and are highly demanding in their expectations concerning both physical and digital commerce. The Mapic agenda will therefore focus on the need for a multichannel approach to understanding these markets, regardless of the chosen development strategy.”

With central Europe now a developed market, there will be a number of sessions dedicated to exploring the potential for retail expansion in BRIC destinations. These debates will explore the main drivers, trends and issues, and look at what kinds of partnerships exist for international retailers, as well as key tax and regulatory issues.

Travel retail will also be under the microscope at this year’s event, with a series of sessions focusing on the evolution of the retail offer at transport hubs including airports and rail stations. Stuart Anderson, head of retail at Transport for London, will be examining the potential for future retail expansion of the TfL network (November 14, 3.30pm to 4pm, Lerins Hall).

TfL is one of the most significant retail landlords in London and has a network of about 1,000 shops. However, the units are small - the average comprises less than 500 sq ft. The majority of shops are run by small independent retailers providing traditional food, beverages and convenience retail, but with advances in technology and the attraction of extremely high footfall, supermarkets and international retailers are focusing their attention on what London Underground can offer them.

This year, the idea of ‘retailtainment’ - the combination of shopping and entertainment - will be also be a focus. A dedicated space in the Palais des Festivals will feature brands that can offer shoppers interactive experiences, such as Walltopia from Bulgaria, which installs rock-climbing walls in shopping malls and amusement parks.

The Innovation Forum, located on the Lerins Level, will give delegates the opportunity to attend a conference every 30 minutes, meet speakers at their demo-stations and discover the most innovative technologies that are shaping the future of shops and shopping centres.

Depetro says: “Improving the in-store experience is not just about adding technology devices. It also involves arranging, staging and promoting the brand experience. This is why retailtainment is constantly growing and will be one of the key topics at the Mapic Innovation Forum.”

Global force

Over the past 19 years, Mapic has provided an international platform for retail property professionals to connect and conduct face-to-face business. This year will be no different; early indications suggest delegate numbers will be slightly up on last year, with a predicted 8,400 participants.

Attending will be delegates from almost 1,400 retailers, about 330 of whom will be present at Mapic for the first time. A total of 69 countries will be represented.

The New Retailer Cocktail event will provide retailers attending for the first time with an opportunity to gain visibility and connect with major developers (November 13, 5pm to 6pm, Lerins Hall).

A large number of sessions will be beneficial to UK retailers. Highlights include a CBRE co-organised conference identifying potential winners among secondary shopping centres (November 13, 11am to 11.45pm, Oxford Room). In Europe a limited stock of increasingly expensive prime shopping centres is forcing investors to consider good secondary assets. Against this background, CBRE has carried out research in a number of European markets to identify the types of secondary shopping centre that are most likely to succeed and why.

Alongside a panel of industry experts, the findings of the research will be presented and key issues debated.

A Cushman & Wakefield-sponsored session will consider the opportunities in central Europe and ask whether we are likely to see the emergence of central European markets other than existing investment hot spots Poland and the Czech Republic (November 14, 10am to 10.45am, Agora). It will also look at how investors can drive income in existing centres and whether developers have turned away from out-of-town locations for good.

Jones Lang LaSalle is co-organiser of the Redefining Retail Places panel (November 14, 2.15pm to 3.15pm, Oxford Room), which will explore where and how people will shop in the future, focusing on how technology, speed of change and an increasingly dynamic retail marketplace are affecting the physical retail environment. James Brown, Jones Lang LaSalle’s head of European retail research, says: “We will be asking what needs to be done to future-proof physical retail places in an increasingly virtual world.” Among the panel members will be Peter Williams, non-executive director of online fashion giant Asos.

Every year since it started, Mapic has been instrumental in introducing emerging retail trends and concepts to the retail property world. As the industry changes, the show has also evolved, encompassing a variety of new and challenging market trends and making it a must-attend event for anyone who wants to get on in the retail and property business.

Digital Summit

Reflecting the increasingly important role that digital technologies will play in the future of retail, Mapic will open with the Digital Summit for the second year in a row. At this invitation-only session, 50 industry thought-leaders will discuss the evolution of multichannel retailing and debate what the rise in new digital technologies means to the retail real estate industry.

The topic of this year’s summit will be ‘off- and online convergence: using digital tools as means’, which will be debated through a roundtable discussion, a learning and discovery session and case studies. The summit will close with a wrap-up session and a special keynote on the future of retail.

CBRE head of EMEA retail research Neville Moss says: “There’s a lot to learn, debate and understand for this select audience of retailers, investors and developers. Our research shows most consumers haven’t really engaged with digital technology and relatively few are using shopping centre apps or QR codes. Digital technology is certainly going to be a differentiator going forward.”

The summit will take place on Mapic’s pre-opening day (November 12, 1pm to 6pm, Majestic Hotel - across from Palais des Festivals).

Mapic by numbers

  • 8,400 unique participants
  • 1,400 brands represented
  • 88,267 sq ft
  • 350 new retail brands
  • 740 exhibiting companies
  • 69 countries
  • 75 UK retailers exhibiting
  • 335 investment companies
  • 2,400 retailers