Faszination Handel 2025: A Look at Consumer Trends and Buying Behavior
On September 9, 2025, IFH KÖLN hosted FASZINATION HANDEL in the historic halls of the University of Cologne. The focus was on Smart Retail and artificial intelligence in retail—and on how digital technologies can revolutionize the customer experience, efficiency, and retail processes. Our Managing Partners Cliff Pfefferkorn and Thomas Natkowski were also on site and took part in the lively exchange.
As a consultancy, eStrategy Consulting GmbH has been working for many years on the opportunities of digitization and AI—not only in retail. Our clients include manufacturers, retailers, and marketplaces, whom we support on questions of digitization and digital transformation. If you would like to learn more about eStrategy Consulting’s capabilities, feel free to visit our competencies pages.
You can find more articles on digital marketplaces and platforms from our competencies page here:
Marketplace strategy for Expert in Germany
Trade association groups have a hard time positioning themselves advantageously in terms of e-commerce, because their decentralised organisational structure means they are faced with the major challenge of bundling their traditional strengths in a central online sales channel. There are various approaches how association groups can position themselves more optimally in online trade.
Centralized & decentralized marketplace connectivity for affiliated groups
As we were able to show in our study, there are different approaches as to how association groups can position themselves in terms of online commerce. The challenge for a marketplace like eBay is to work with these very different and individual characteristics and infrastructures.
AWS Summit 2025
June 2025
The AWS Summit in Hamburg focused on the future of cloud and AI – a meeting place for experts who drive new ideas and innovations. Our Managing Partner Thomas Natkowski was there, taking advantage of the opportunity to exchange ideas with the community and bringing back exciting impressions from Hamburg.
ESPS 2025 in Innsbruck
April 2025
Our Managing Partner, Cliff Pfefferkorn, attended the European Council of Shopping Places Summit 2025 in Innsbruck. The event, held under the motto “Creating Places People Love – Social, Sustainable, and Successful,” highlighted a range of key topics, including UX & Commerce Innovation, Customer Centricity, Environmental Responsibility & Circular Economy, and Digital Transformation.
FIBE Berlin 2025: The Fintech Festival
April 2025
In April 2025, the FIBE Berlin fintech festival took place, and our managing partner Thomas Natkowski was right in the thick of it. In addition to inspiring presentations, he took the opportunity to exchange ideas with industry experts on site and gather exciting insights from the fintech ecosystem.
Faszination Handel 2024: A look at consumer trends and buying behavior
September 2024
Our managing partners Thomas Natkowski and Cliff Pfefferkorn took part in FASZINATION HANDEL 2024. The event focused on key developments in retail, with an emphasis on new consumer trends and changing purchasing behavior.