Chinese electronic shelf label (ESL) and digital retail specialist Hanshow showed at last week’s EuroShop in Germany how its digital twin can help retailers and brands transform in-store operations from reactive management to predictive, data-driven execution.

As retail environments grow increasingly complex, manual processes and retrospective analysis are no longer sufficient. In this context, real-time data, AI and connected infrastructure have become the foundation for efficient operations, precise execution and sustainable profitability in physical stores.

At EuroShop, Hanshow presented a store digital twin built on NexShelf as the intelligent shelf foundation and Smart Cart, part of its NexConnect offerings. By bringing advantages of online shopping, such as personalisation, real-time recommendations and data-driven engagement, into the physical store, Smart Cart helps retailers deliver a more seamless, intuitive and engaging shopping experience offline.

Within NexShelf, Nebular Ultra, Hanshow’s latest generation of ESLs, serves as the cornerstone of the digital twin by anchoring shelves and products to real-time location intelligence at scale.

Despite decades of retail evolution, the shelf remains the primary moment of truth for purchasing decisions and one of the least digitised areas of the store. NexShelf addresses this blind spot by transforming each shelf into a measurable, connected digital asset.

Interconnected with Nebular Ultra ESLs and AI cameras, NexShelf enables centimetre-level product location intelligence, real-time detection of out-of-stocks, monitoring of planogram compliance and instant updating of product information.

By making shelf conditions visible, measurable and actionable, NexShelf provides the ground-truth data required to mirror physical store conditions within a digital twin environment, turning the shelf into a true store operational cockpit.

NexShelf is powered by Hanshow’s HiLPC communication protocol, a low-power, reliable infrastructure purpose-built for large-scale retail environments. Designed to support dense shelf deployments and continuous real-time data transmission, HiLPC ensures stable performance across entire store networks while reducing energy consumption and infrastructure complexity. With open integration capabilities, NexShelf seamlessly connects with existing store systems, cloud platforms and future in-store technologies, delivering one of the lowest total costs of ownership for large-scale shelf digitalisation.

“By making shelf status visible, measurable and actionable, NexShelf establishes the foundation of the store digital twin,” said Philippe Brochard from Hanshow. “It enables retailers and brands to move from assumptions to facts, and from reactive operations to proactive, data-driven decision-making at scale.”

Acting as a geo-reference point within the store, Nebular Ultra enables NexShelf to generate a real-time, granular digital map of shelves, products and execution conditions, providing the ground truth required for accurate digital twin rendering and shelf-level insights. With intelligent energy optimisation, Nebular Ultra delivers a label lifespan of up to ten years, reducing operating costs while ensuring continuous, reliable execution at scale.

Hanshow’s Smart Cart connects the shopper to the digital twin, transforming each cart into a connected, location-aware touchpoint within the physical store. By capturing real-time in-store positioning, Smart Cart completes the people dimension of the digital twin while seamlessly linking with shelf- and product-level data from NexShelf.

As shoppers move through the store, Smart Cart enables real-time interaction with pricing, promotions and product information, supporting guided item finding, basket tracking and self-checkout. This reduces friction and shopping time while delivering a more intuitive in-store experience.

For retailers and brands, Smart Cart unlocks commercial and operational value. By linking shopper location with live shelf data and ESLs, it enables location-based promotions and in-store retail media activation at the point of decision, increasing basket value and unlocking retail media network monetisation opportunities. Reduced reliance on traditional checkout counters also improves store efficiency and staff deployment.

Continuous location and behaviour data from Smart Cart further enrich the digital twin with insights into traffic patterns, dwell time and shopper engagement, enabling data-driven optimisation of store layout, assortment and execution. Integrated positioning, AI-assisted monitoring and electronic locking mechanisms also strengthen asset protection and loss prevention without compromising the shopping experience.

By connecting real-time shopper behaviour with shelf execution, product availability and spatial context, Smart Cart closes the loop between people, products and space within the digital twin, enabling data-driven, AI-powered store operations.

“Smart Cart is redefining the in-store shopping experience by creating a unique, personalised media channel at the point of purchase,” said William Shao, head of smart carts at Hanshow (www.hanshow.com). “It brings the best of online shopping into physical stores, opening up new possibilities for engagement, efficiency and retail media monetisation.”