Retail Technology

xRetail at IRSE 2026: Rethinking Retail with Indonesia’s Retail Leaders

August 27, 20266 min read

This week, our team packed up the booth materials and headed to Jakarta for the Indonesia Retail Summit & Expo (IRSE) 2026 — the fifth edition of Indonesia’s flagship conference and expo on the retail industry and its ecosystem, held at Swissôtel PIK over 26–27 August.

The theme this year set the tone for every conversation we had: "Rethinking Retail: The Future is Customer-Led."

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Footfall analytics, heatmaps, dwell time, zone analysis, occupancy monitoring, shopper journey, and store conversion signals

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For a company that builds AI-powered store operations technology, it was the right room to be in. Across two days at Booth A4, we spoke with retail operators, mall tenants, and technology partners from across Indonesia and Southeast Asia — and the message from the floor was remarkably consistent.

What retail leaders in Indonesia are asking

The conversations we had clustered around a few recurring themes.

1. "We know what sold. We don’t know what happened before the sale."

This was the most common starting point. POS data tells operators what was purchased, but not how many shoppers entered, where they moved, which zones they engaged with, or where the journey broke down. Store teams want the layer of visibility that sits between footfall and purchase.

2. "How do we make physical stores more measurable?"

Many operators are running stores across multiple locations with very different shopping missions. They want to compare store performance, understand traffic patterns by daypart, and make layout and staffing decisions based on evidence rather than observation.

3. "Customer-led is easy to say. How do we actually operationalise it?"

The summit theme resonated, but operators wanted the practical layer: how do you know what customers actually do in your store, rather than what you assume they do?

These questions are exactly what xTrack addresses — footfall analytics, people counting, dwell time, zone engagement, shopper journey visibility, and store conversion signals. Being customer-led, in practice, starts with seeing the customer’s journey through the store.

Takeaways from the summit floor

Three things stood out from the two days.

Indonesia’s retail market is scaling fast and thinking digital-first

From modern retail formats to digital adoption across the archipelago, the appetite for technology-led operations is real and growing.

The customer-led shift is creating demand for better store intelligence

Operators are moving beyond transaction data and looking for ways to understand shopper behaviour in the physical space.

Regional retailers want practical, evidence-based tools

Not more dashboards for their own sake, but tools that connect traffic patterns with operating decisions.

What’s next

IRSE 2026 was an opportunity to listen, learn, and share. The conversations we had in Jakarta will shape how we continue to serve retail operators across Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

If you missed us at the summit, or if you’re a retail operator exploring how to make your stores more customer-led, we’d love to talk. Reach out through our contact page or explore what xTrack can do for your stores.

Our team at Booth A4, IRSE 2026, Jakarta.