Retail Trends You Should Follow in 2026

This is 2026 and in this age only one north star matters for retailers: bringing offline and online shopping together to eliminate friction across the journey. This is something that will be great from the view of customer experience. Well, this is one of some retail trends that you need to follow this year. 

To improve customer experience and seize the opportunity, retailers have to focus primarily on the following points:

• Increase analytical and digital competencies to compete with companies dealing with consumer goods and selling directly to customers. 
• Deliver excellent shopping experience to customers through different channels
• Deliver personalized shopping experience to customers

So, considering these points, there are some retail trends that make sense to be followed this year so retailers can get a lead in the market. 

Top Retail Trends for 2026

Every retailer these days looks for ways that could get him ahead in the market and bring customer attention to their products. That’s where these retail trends would help them.

1. Reimagine Loyalty Programs

Customers these days are smart and always expect brands to understand their unique needs. That’s where retailers can use the AI capabilities like Einstein Analytics by Salesforce to understand customers and reimagine their existing loyalty programs.

They need to set up their loyalty programs in a way that could engage shoppers in a personalized and meaningful way. 

2. Unify Commerce Across Platforms

Retailers need to always stay on brand, irrespective of where their customers shop from. That’s where they need the right technology to connect their store and digital interaction that could help them to achieve a frictionless customer journey. 

In this aspect, retailers have to focus on two points:

• They have to build commerce capabilities into messaging apps and social media platforms where customers can discover and buy their products. 
• Almost  60% of digital orders are influenced by the store in some way or the other. Thus, it is important to scale operations to enable store fulfillment and maintain endless aisles. 

3. Humanize Experiences

For all customers, customer service matters the most. In fact, 91% of customers say that they are likely to make another purchase if the customer service of a brand is good.

That’s where retailers can think of working with some of the following methods that would help them to humanize experiences.

• Virtual agents: Retails can connect their systems so the service agents can have a complete view of customer interactions, enabling them to provide virtual service from anywhere.
• Chatbots: Many customers prefer using chatbots to get answers to their simple questions, instead of having a detailed conversation with an agent. 
• Automated service: Retailers can also access automated service features to accommodate personal preferences. It would streamline journeys like creating a return order or checking delivery status. 

Follow These Retail Trends for Growth and Sustainability 

All the retail trends that we’ve mentioned are highly fruitful for this golden age of shopping. With companies mastering innovation, moving to these trends by leveraging technologies like Salesforce can help your business can the right turn towards growth. 

Leveraging Salesforce for retail with the help of certified Salesforce consultants is the best move to start when you want to acquire the potential of all the above-mentioned retail trends.