Attending the NACS Convenience Summit Europe (CSE) in Warsaw, Poland June 16-18 was memorable and enjoyable for several reasons.
Since I had never been to Poland, I added a few days in Krakow, where I also visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp museum about 90 minutes away, as well as the Schindler Factory in Krakow (famous from Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List movie), that is now a museum.
Several U.S. retailers attending CSE in Warsaw also traveled to Krakow and Auschwitz, although we were not there together. The Auschwitz experience was quite solemn, and I truthfully think the full impact for all of us will build over time.
I have attended NACS CSE in Berlin, Dublin, Barcelona and Copenhagen, as well as Convenience Summit Asia (CSA) in Tokyo and Shanghai, (my VGN co-founders Roy and Eva Strasburger also attended several) so I knew that CSE in Warsaw would be a terrific networking and immersive convenience retailing experience.
It was such a pleasure to be joined by U.S. CLVG and SOVG members Annie Gauthier, Lonnie McQuirter, Chris Bambury, as well as JP Patel. And spending time with GCVG members Zsuzsa Hordai, Brian Donaldson, Jesper Østergaard, Jorge Escuin-Rubio, and Agnieszka Bobrukiewicz was a treat.
Of course, GCVG facilitator Christian Warning was omni-present!
In addition, throughout the three days of exceptional networking and presentations, I had the good fortune to chat with and learn from Brian Gray, Dominic Casby, Jelle Hecht, Megan McLehaney, David Bagnell, Daniel O’Connell, Scott Annan, Nick Scherzer, Derek Zahajko , Mike Zahajko, Edwin Winkler, Linda Toth, Mark Chen, Shady Gobran, Gilles de Roy, Stephen Bozdan, Mick Houben, Alan McGown, Dan Munford, Simon Martin, Johan Strydom, Darragh Gilhawley, Anna Malkan, Louise Eckford, Nick Wright, David Martin, Lorence Weiss, Oscar Smith-Diamonte, Volodymyr Bondarenko , Alvaro Vela Muñoz, Henry Armour, Magnar Møkkelgård, Ben Nussbaum, Mark Wohltmann, Lukasz Piotrowski, Frodi Hammer, Debbie Robinson, Denis Christesen, Sandra Karp, Leszek Rowinski, Jimmy Frangis, Kurt Rodenburg, Elliot Hurst, Alicia Cruzado Lopez, Leszek Jurczak, Matthew Pereira, Craig Phillipson, Barry Faulkner, Dusko Tomic, Veronica Bondi, Jason Fiddes, Ben Park, Luca Libra and Antonio San Martino.
The Ideas 2 Go Bus and Walking Tours are always the highlight and probably rank among the top reasons that the 200-ish attendees come every year. This year, Warsaw did not disappoint.
And, as you can imagine, it was conversations while on the bus or walking from store to store, and the merchandising, architecture, customer engagement in the stores, that made memorable moments at:
- Orlen, Mol, Shell, Amic , BP, Circle K and MOYA petrol stations
- Zabka, Zabka Nano (unmanned) and Carrefour Express, 1Minute and Relay convenience retail
- Green Café Nero, Coffeedesk, Vincent Boulangerie, Costa Coffee, About Matcha, and Tchibo coffee chains
- Top Market, Biedronka, Lidl and Rossman grocery and discount
- Foodservice at Semifreddo, Shell Café, Wazaap Matcha Bar, Piekarnia Pastry, Batida Pastry, Goraco Polecam, Salad Story, McDonald’s, Fabryk Norblina foodcourt, Bar Mieczny and Elektrownia Powisle foodcourt
My prior commentaries in The VGN Lens and Vision Reports talked about customer experience driving loyalty and destination-shopping. All of this was clear in Warsaw as the operational and strategic trends are shaping the future of convenience retailing globally.
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