EuroCIS 2027 Hot Topics: which technologies take the pressure off retail?

Staff are in short supply, margins are tight and inventory shrinkage is rising. At the same time, customers expect short waiting times, good advice and a free choice of payment methods.

For retailers, the question is therefore less whether to invest in retail technology than where an investment will make a noticeable difference. EuroCIS 2027 brings the industry's most pressing issues together in six Hot Topics.

According to the EHI study "Inventurdifferenzen 2026” (Inventory Shrinkage 2026)", inventory shrinkage in German retail amounted to 5.11 billion euros in 2025, an increase of 3.2 per cent. At the same time, retailers are increasingly shifting checkout to self-service: according to the EHI, the number of stores with self-checkout has more than doubled in two years to over 11,000. Payment is also becoming more digital: in the euro area, 85 per cent of card payments at physical terminals were already contactless in the second half of 2025, according to the European Central Bank. "The Hot Topics address precisely these developments – each at a different stage of the shopping journey," says Elke Moebius, Director EuroCIS. "We are not interested in technology for its own sake, but in solutions that make a noticeable difference to retailers’ day-to-day work"

Whether the right goods are on the shelf is decided before the purchase. This is where the Hot Topic AI & Data-Driven Retail comes in: AI-supported demand forecasting calculates demand from sales data, seasonality, weather and promotions, thereby reducing empty shelves and write-offs; dynamic pricing adjusts prices to demand and stock levels. Computer vision – the automatic analysis of camera images – detects gaps on the shelves and, together with sensors and in-store analytics, shows how customers move through the store. Solutions can be found in the product categories Analytics and Merchandise & Supply Chain Management.

Retail Media refers to retailers marketing their advertising space to brands – in store via screens and digital price tags, online via website, app and newsletter, and offsite with target groups drawn from their own checkout and loyalty data. The advantage: retailers can measure the impact right down to the receipt. According to the YouGov study "Retail Media aus Shopper-Sicht" (Retail media from the shopper's perspective) (July 2026), advertising at the point of sale influences purchasing decisions in impulse categories such as coffee or chocolate by up to 86 per cent. Solutions are presented in the product category Digital Marketing.

Good in-store advice requires sufficient staff – yet the shortage of skilled workers is worsening while customer expectations are rising. Employee Empowerment covers digital tools that ease the burden on employees: workforce management for shift planning, mobile devices for tasks and communication, automated time recording and e-learning. In the EHI white paper "Future-Ready Store Operations" (2025), 36 per cent of the 58 executives surveyed count short-notice rescheduling due to staff absences among their most time-consuming tasks – this is where tools with availability information and shift swapping come in. Providers can be found in the product category Human Resource Management.

Conventional checkouts tie up a lot of staff and space. Future Checkout combines self-scanning, mobile checkouts and AI-supported product recognition with merchandise management and staff planning. In the EHI study "Checkout-Trends 2026", 60 per cent of the 50 retail companies surveyed in the DACH region see the greatest need for AI support at the checkout (2024: 33 per cent). “The checkout is developing into an intelligent, connected platform,” says study author Cetin Acar from the EHI. Solutions are brought together in the product category Seamless Checkout.

The Hot Topic Future Payment addresses the question of how customers pay – from cash and cards to wallets and biometric solutions through to QR code payments. According to the EHI study "Zahlungssysteme im Einzelhandel" (Payment Systems in Retail), 19.3 per cent of cashless payments in brick-and-mortar retail were already made via mobile devices in 2025. New methods are being added: the European payment solution Wero has been available in stores since 2026, and a pilot phase for the digital euro is planned from the second half of 2027. Cryptocurrencies are also being trialled, for example in more than 100 SPAR Switzerland stores since August 2025. Providers can be found in the product category Payment.

Self-checkouts and autonomous stores make shopping more seamless but create new vulnerabilities. Of the 5.11 billion euros in inventory shrinkage, 4.33 billion euros were due to internal and external theft, according to the EHI, in addition to scanning and process errors. The Hot Topic Loss Prevention therefore views loss prevention as an integrated system: RFID and smart cameras provide real-time inventory data, analytics detect fraud patterns at the self-checkout, and IoT solutions connect video surveillance and article surveillance. Suitable solutions are presented in the product category Security & Loss Prevention.

Which technology delivers the greatest benefit depends on each company's bottlenecks, data and processes. "Every company starts from a different position – there is no one-size-fits-all solution," says Elke Moebius. "At EuroCIS, retailers can compare options in one place and find the approach that suits them."

From 16 to 18 February 2027 in Düsseldorf, retailers will find numerous providers and solutions for all six Hot Topics to address their individual challenges.