L+R will be on the ground at Shoptalk Europe 2026, taking place June 9–11 at Fira Gran Via in Barcelona, a short walk from our Barcelona studio. Billed as Europe's home for retail innovation, Shoptalk brings together more than 4,500 attendees, 180+ speakers, and 400+ technology providers from over 60 countries, with roughly one in three guests at the C-suite level. For a firm whose work sits at the intersection of retail, design, and technology, it's three days in exactly the right room.
This year's program centers on a question we field constantly from clients: how to adopt AI and automation across the business without losing the human authenticity that earns customer loyalty. The speaker list reads like a map of where modern retail is headed: David Schröder, Co-CEO of Zalando; Fiona Tan, CTO of Wayfair; Bernard Osta, CEO of Vestiaire Collective; Alexis Rollier, Global COO of Sephora; Stuart Haselden, CEO of Arc'teryx; and Peter Ruis, Managing Director of John Lewis & Partners, among leaders from Estée Lauder, Christian Louboutin, AllSaints, COS, PANGAIA, and Kraft Heinz. The conversations span storefront and screen, brand and operations, the same full picture we work in.
That breadth is the reason we attend. Our digital business management practice helps retailers and consumer brands translate strategy into commerce that performs, from ecommerce architecture to the UX/UI that customers actually move through. The store tours, case studies, and tech showcases at Shoptalk are a fast way to pressure-test our thinking against what the market's best operators are shipping right now.
We're equally focused on the layer beneath the storefront. With 400+ vendors demonstrating solutions, the show is a working laboratory for our technology service provider selection practice, where we help clients cut through the noise and choose platforms that fit their roadmap rather than the loudest pitch. And as retailers race to put AI to work, the gains increasingly come from the inside, which is the heart of our internal tooling and workflow AI work, building the systems that make merchandising, operations, and service teams measurably faster. Much of the value at Shoptalk this year lives in that quiet, operational space, and it's where we'll be paying the closest attention.
If you'll be in Barcelona for the show, we'd welcome the chance to compare notes. Get in touch and let's find time.
