Some 1,000 participants migrated to Berlin last week for the World Retail Congress. And as migration, in a sense, was a congress leitmotif, Berlin was the perfect location. Ring-walled from access for millions of its nearest neighbours over decades, this city is now the cosmopolitan meeting point über alles.

Some 1,000 participants migrated to Berlin last week for the World Retail Congress. And as migration, in a sense, was a congress leitmotif, Berlin was the perfect location. Ring-walled from access for millions of its nearest neighbours over decades, this city is now the cosmopolitan meeting point über alles.

Although politicians are rarely described as migrants (that they themselves often use as but a pejorative term for perceived undesirables) the move of the Bundestag to Berlin has certainly made them so in Germany.

Retailers, too, are rarely described as migrants. But is that not what we are, migrating our brands across geographies and channels? Certainly expansion and ecommerce were dominant topics at the congress.

And what is social networking but technological migration for innumerable Twitter-ers flocking to their new online homes, as virtually mobile as the eponymous device they increasingly use to get there?

Some of the biggest brand migrants were at the congress: for example, Mango, the Catalan fashion phenomenon that announced the opening of its 102nd market, and Aldo, the Canadian footwear group, with the imminent arrival of its 1,500th store, in a portfolio that embraces six continents.

Western Union, in whose view “47% of the top 100 global retail brands offer financial services more successfully than banks” also presented its credentials. 85% of Western Union’s customers (in more than 430,000 locations) are “working migrants seeking opportunity abroad” and, according to World Bank estimates, there are 80 million such Europeans.

I then went from Berlin to Warsaw where, whatever the latest stats on Polish migrants, their home market is evidently beset by migrant retail banners from all over Europe.

A newly opened mall in central Warsaw houses C&A, Camaieu, H&M and Marks & Spencer with only the fashion chain Reserved flying the national flag.

Costa Coffee recently arrived by acquiring the excellent Coffee Heaven chain. One of its star baristas directed me to a gastronomic treat, located improbably in the former kitchens of the Europejski hotel, where I stayed on business in the 1970s and of which my memories are grim. The hotel has happily closed down but the Gesslers have opened their U Kucharzy restaurant on the ground floor.

The cuisine is superb (local organic ingredients, menu changing twice daily) and the PLN30 (£6.50) three-course ‘expresso’ lunch, the best deal in Europe.

“Not everyone can spend hours here in the evening,” explained the manager, “so we want to give them the same quality, inexpensively and quickly, for lunch.” A commendable, dare I say socialist, aim that everyone today should eat well; in the Soviet-bloc days of yore we all perforce ate badly.

Happily migration goes both ways and the Gesslers have opened a restaurant in London: Gessler at Daquise. I can’t wait to get home.

Michael Poynor, managing director, Retail Expertise