Benedict Evans: "Everything in retail and commerce is breaking apart and changing"

Tech analyst Benedict Evans puts it straight in a video interview with GDI: "Everything in retail and commerce is breaking apart and changing – everything in how consumer brands work, everything in marketing and advertising. And that affects $20 to $25 trillion worth of consumer spending." All cards have been thrown up in the air, he said, and no one knows where they are going to land. "We had these well-set, well-understood models of the flow of the product from the manufacturer to the consumer. And now all of these structures have been exploded."

Ben Evans explains how the pandemic influenced the trend of unbundling and what technology trends are coming next in a video interview here:

Javier Goyeneche makes clothes out of plastic waste through his label Ecoalf. He says: "Instead of asking ourselves which earth we are leaving to our children, we should be concerned about which children we are leaving to the earth." Watch the whole video interview from the GDI Retail Summit here.

The last 18 month have undoubtedly left their mark on retail. But which trends have emerged as a result? And will they remain with us? How has the pandemic changed corporate culture and management concepts? What are the consequences for the West's relations with China? These and other questions were the focus of the International Retail Summit 2021. A summary.

In December 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, Francesco Farinetti opened Green Pea, the world's first completely sustainable shopping centre, in Turin. Here, and at the GDI Retail Summit in September, he explained how shopping and sustainability can go together.