As this year’s NRF conference winds down the delegates are turning their minds to their flights home and there is certainly a lot to digest.

China has loomed large on the agenda this year and cropped up in many of the presentations at the show as retailers consider how to get a slice of the Chinese action.

Ecommerce giant Alibaba, which last year floated on the New York stock exchange, even gave its own talk on the Chinese market.

There can be no doubt that the Chinese have arrived with a bang on the international retail scene and they are here to stay.

Retailers that operate in the Chinese market wasted no time to explain just how popular mobile commerce is among Chinese consumers, who are increasingly flocking from the countryside to the nation’s megacities.

Expect NRF talks on m-commerce best practice in years to come to be dominated by Chinese retailers.

Once again there was the glut of technology to take in from the hundreds of exhibitors scattered around the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

Highlights included Tesco’s image recognition technology that is on the verge of being trialled. It will allow Tesco’s thousands of in-store colleagues to instantly recognise what products are missing and which are in the wrong place.

The days of chaotic shelves in your local Tesco Express could soon be over if the technology lives up to its potential.

Meanwhile, Fujitsu was showcasing a prototype of its new eye-tracking technology which will allow retailers to record exactly what customers are looking at and create reactive in-store displays.

The usual concerns about privacy will no doubt be raised, but if handled sensitively the technology could lead to some extremely exciting in-store theatre.

Delegates will have all this and more to mull over on their flights home. That is if they don’t just end up watching the in-flight movie.