Retailers Out in Force at Next Week's Future of Entertainment Summit

Online, June 16, 2012 (Newswire.com) - With high street hardware and content retailers enduring difficult times and somewhat mixed fortunes we are delighted that so many high profile stores, including Tesco, FNAC, MediaMarkt, HMV, Phones4U, John Lewis and Argos, are signing up to participate at this year's Future of Entertainment Summit, taking place in London next Wednesday 20 June 2012.

"It is clear from our conversations with both retailers and suppliers we can see there is a clear focus on what does and doesn't generate revenues in the high street," says Jim Bottoms, Director and Co-Founder at Futuresource Consulting, "and the days of using certain items or titles as a loss leader to generate footfall is certainly a thing of the past. Stores are changing the way they position and display items, and are really focusing on the ways consumers behave when they go into a store. These are among the topics being discussed at the event."

"Despite the recession there is an increasing array of products and technologies available to the consumer, and clearly retailers have a key role to play in education and awareness-building in these challenging times," says William Higham, Director of Consumer Electronics at Intellect. "That's why we're seeing record numbers of attendees from the retail trade, all keen to ensure they have a good understanding of the core growth sectors and a clear picture of the way products, technologies and services interact with each other in order to create the biggest market impact."

But it's not just about the high street. E-commerce is proving a highly attractive alternative for both hardware and content purchasers, while the growing array of online content offerings is adding further competition for consumers wishing to acquire a movie, game or CD.

The winners in the retail landscape will be those that develop true synergies between in-store and online purchasing. Increasingly, one platform will need to drive shoppers to the other and vice versa. In-store will always be better for some things such as impulse buying, gifts, promotions, browsing and a pleasurable way of spending time, while online shopping works better for others including wider choice, price comparison and armchair convenience.

A clear way this online/high street synergy is being exploited is through the retailer and content company push towards UltraViolet, giving consumers who buy a title on disc, online access to that same content across other devices. Ultraviolet and other cloud based solutions are starting to gather momentum now and this will be a key area of focus at FES 2012, another reason for the significant interest in this year's event from retailers, both physical and digital.

As retailing continues to evolve and the choice of channels available to the consumer expands, the points of exit and entry are no longer clearly defined. The "omni-channel" consumer may use many sources of information simultaneously or in quick succession, and retailers need to interact seamlessly across these multiple touchpoints, providing consistent messaging and tracking the customer experience across all channels in unison. This new fully-integrated approach to the consumer experience will also be discussed in detail at FES2012.

To find out more and to book your place, visit www.fes2012.com