A panel of retailers and vendor debate the current retail approach

The panel discussion at Distress Middle East 2016 consisted of Venkat Reddy, COO and Co-Founder of Legacy International; Toufic Eido, Regional Channel Manager, Virgin Megastore; Atheeq Ahmed, General Manager, Ctroniq; Karim Ghoneim, KMG Egypt; and Muddassir Ahmad, DGM Strategic Alliances, Sharaf DG (left to right). The panel debated whether the retail channel business was still healthy and the opinion was it is, but that there are corrections that need to be applied. These included price wars, setting customer expectations in terms of product information, and in-store retail experience. The consumer retail channel is still a very big opportunity and needs to focus on offers and lifestyle experiences. While the retail industry has always been challenging, there are different kinds of challenges now, and the channel has to innovate by making lifestyle easy. Some of the hot technologies include augmented virtual reality, 3D printing, fitness trackers and a large selection of wearables. The panel discussed that the hottest category of products is usually short-term products.