Elly Yates-Roberts |
The National Retail Federation is debuting an expanded programme at its annual flagship conference, NRF 2018: Retail’s Big Show, which begins this weekend at the Javits Center in New York.
The agenda includes 36 keynote speakers and eight feature-stage sessions, plus over 700 exhibitors. 36,000 attendees from 90 countries are expected to attend.
“While maintaining the quality of events that attendees come back for year after year, we’re excited to introduce fresh programming that dynamically captures the state of today’s ever-evolving industry,” said Cristina Ceresoli, senior vice president for retail strategy at NRF.
This year, the Innovation Lab which will feature three key areas highlighting different products, technologies and topics that will affect the retail experience of the future. Retail 2020 will allow visitors to experience how each element of the shopping journey can be transformed using recent advances in augmented reality, AI, machine learning, facial recognition, big data and robotics. The Emerging Technologies Showcase will give product demos to show how technologies such as AI, AR/VR, computer-generated images, robotics and wearables can be used to make businesses more productive. The Innovation Lab Stage will host a series of presentations covering consumer expectations, trends and new store formats.
NRF 2018 will also offer four unique Expo Tour experiences, each a two-hour walking tour providing an in-depth study of retail technology across multiple business disciplines.
The event begins at 8.45am on 14 January, with a welcome from Terry Lundgren, NRF chairman and chief executive of Macy’s, Inc. Speakers at the event include James Curleigh, president of Levi’s Brand, Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Walmart and Marne Levine, COO of Instagram.
Register for NRF 2018 at the event website.