The covid-19 pandemic created new challenges within the retail sector. It requires the necessary openness and resilience to reinvent yourself in order to respond to the complexity that so much retail organizations are confronted with. To remain relevant in the post-corona era, brands and retailers will need to focus more than ever on human relationships. This also requires a new look at the connection between the physical store and online.

During his keynote ‘Human encounters of the Phygital kind’ at the 2021 RetailDetail Omnichannel Congress, Callebaut Collective Founding & Managing Partner Karel Demeester demonstrated how focusing on human relationships can guide us in the post-covid retail world. Also, in a preliminary interview with RetailDetail Karel shares his Act Human view on retail.

‘Physical retail after corona: “Invest in human relationships”’ is an interview with Karel Demeester that was published on February 5, 2021 on www.retaildetail.be. This interview was originally written in Dutch; you can read the full article in Dutch here.

Curious about Karel’s full keynote at the 2021 RetailDetail Omnichannel Congress? You can watch his session (in English) below. Interested in our book ‘Act Human’? Order your copy here.