In some bad news for the retail technology industry, it has been announced that next week’s Retail Business Show exhibition will not be taking place.

The show’s organiser has confirmed to exhibitors that it has ceased trading, and that the event will not go ahead.

This is a great shame at a time when retailers are keener than ever to get together to talk about the issues that their businesses are facing, and what they can do to help support them. And it’s also not good news for retailers if their suppliers have invested marketing budgets in an event on which they will get no return.

Last week at the National Retail Federation show in the US, the hot topic was the country’s economic woes, rather than leading-edge technology. But the suppliers exhibiting rose to the challenge, with many scaling back the grandness of their stands, and focused on listening to what retailers’ pressure points are.

No doubt UK suppliers would have taken a similar approach next week, helping them to take the temperature of the market and respond with propositions for their customers which can help them maximise the cash in their business – the number one aim according to many Retail Week spoke with at NRF.

The Retail Business Show’s lead sponsor K3 will instead be holding a smaller event on January 28, at the Holiday Inn in Kensington alongside several partners. It is inviting interested retailers to let the company know if they want to come along, and also if there are other technology suppliers they would like to see at the event.

It is easy to portray a picture of doom and gloom, where no one makes any technology investments, but the reality seems a little brighter. As one IT director pointed out this week, in general, it is still an awful lot easier to get budget for IT investments than it was a decade ago.