MultichannelDay 2025 in Cologne – Exchange, insights, and strategies for the future of retail

Here's what brands and retailers are doing to support their brick-and-mortar businesses in online visibility and customer experience.

Due to the increasing importance of online retail, stationary retail has come under increasing pressure in recent years. Nevertheless, stationary retail has so far dealt with digitalization and the possibilities of e-commerce in very different ways. Numerous cities want to support stationary retail and bring together local supply with local demand.

ECE is one of the three largest developers and operators of shopping malls in Europe. It is challenged by digitalization of retail, because the new customer behavior and the increasing relevance of digital channels in the customer journey weaken existing USPs of shopping malls: the leasing of attractive, high-reach and high-revenue spaces to renting retailers.

Against the background of the spread of messenger services including integrated services for users, the social network Xing planned the expansion of the already existing messaging offers.

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.

In cooperation with eBay Germany, eStrategy Consulting has established strategic partnerships with large retail companies for the efficient sale of special items and developed individual business models for the respective online outlets.

The expansion of the wi-fi infrastructure is a central project for the future of Deutsche Bahn. In order to determine the status quo, eStrategy Consulting conducted a study on free wi-fi projects. Subsequently, the plausibility of different digital business models along the customer journey was evaluated and prioritized, and initial concepts for piloting were created.

The digital transformation is enabling new possibilities for manufacturers, dealers and other parties. Customers have new expectations, regarding the use of the car as well as the purchase or sale. In many areas, the automotive industry is still at the very beginning of digitalization and Twinner should be an important building block in the future.

The market for used and refurbished goods is growing and accounts for an important share of eBay's total turnover. For buyers of these goods, there are two particular criteria: transparency of the condition of the individual product and trust in the quality of the offer. These two criteria were not yet sufficiently established on the eBay marketplace.

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.

Sustainable, resource-saving shopping is increasingly becoming an important decision-making criterion for online customers. This also includes the question of how the respective CO2 footprint can be reduced when buying.

A special and relevant need of buyers is their desire to insure purchased goods against failure and damage as simply and cost-attractively as possible. However, such a function has hardly been offered online so far, at least not as a solution seamlessly integrated into the purchasing process.