December tends to do something to retail leaders. The calendar slows down just enough for the questions to get louder.
What happened this year? Why did everything feel so intense? And what, exactly, is coming next?
In our latest Retail Talk live session, we tried to answer those questions with one constraint: no “trend tourism.” No futuristic guesses. Only what retailers and solution providers are already building, funding, testing, and quietly preparing for.
Because 2025 didn’t just bring innovation. It brought pressure, geopolitical tension, trade uncertainty, and a constant sense that the ground is moving under our feet. At the same time, AI accelerated so fast that many teams felt they were running just to stay in place.
And that is the key context for 2026: retail is not “changing.” Retail is reformatting.
Retail is moving from clicks to conversions, from stores to experiences, and from segments to individuals.
Everything below is just the proof.
1) Agentic commerce: the obvious shift—and the overlooked one
Most people now understand the first wave of agentic AI: the agent as the customer’s assistant.
A “shopping agent” searches, compares, negotiates, buys, and pays, end to end. In the live session we talked about how major players are already rolling out assistants that do parts of this flow.
But the more disruptive wave is the one people rarely describe out loud:
The agent as the retailer.
Not a chatbot on a website. Not a recommendation widget. A retailer that operates without stores, without a classic web shop, supported by an army of AI sales agents that actively find customers, start conversations, and sell in a proactive, automated way.
If that sounds extreme, notice what the infrastructure players are doing. Stripe, for example, has already launched an “Agentic Commerce Suite,” explicitly positioning it as a way for businesses to become “agent-ready” for selling through AI agents. (Stripe)
Once checkout, product discovery, and payments are re-shaped for agents—not humans—the competitive advantage shifts from “best storefront” to “best systems.”
2) The super-app era: when the new mall is an interface
The next big retail channel may not look like a channel at all.
In our discussion, we explored a future where ChatGPT-like platforms evolve toward a super-app model: one secure environment, one identity, and a growing list of services around search, community, shopping, and payments.
That direction is not happening in a vacuum. OpenAI publicly announced that Fidji Simo joined as CEO of Applications, an execution-heavy role aimed at scaling products and real-world adoption. (OpenAI)
This matters for retailers because “being present” won’t mean “running ads” only. It will mean being machine-readable, agent-friendly, and natively purchasable inside interfaces customers already live in.
Retailers that treat this as “just another channel” will move too slowly. Retailers that treat it as a new operating system will build a real advantage.
3) Re-commerce grows up: secondhand becomes strategy
Secondhand is no longer a niche or a moral statement. It is becoming a mainstream choice, and a serious business model.
In the live session we talked about how vintage and secondhand shopping has moved into everyday behavior, driven by younger consumers, but not limited to them.
The deeper signal is what this does to the retail stack:
Re-commerce is logistics, authentication, quality gates, returns, resale pricing, and customer trust, at scale. It pulls retail closer to services, not just products.
When “new” and “used” sit next to each other as equal options, the customer’s definition of value changes. And when value changes, everything, from merchandising to loyalty, must change with it.
4) Stores that feel like destinations, not shelves
E-commerce didn’t kill the store. It forced the store to justify itself.
We discussed a pattern that is already visible: retailers redesigning physical stores into experience hubs, social hubs, even entertainment hubs, places where people meet, test, learn, play, and feel something.
One practical example from the session: the way large electronics formats are being re-imagined into “villages” of brand booths, demo zones, music corners, and immersive spaces.
This is not decoration. It is defensive strategy.
If digital becomes frictionless, physical must become meaningful.
Even the ownership dynamics around big retail formats show how strategic physical presence still is. JD.com’s planned move to acquire control of CECONOMY (the MediaMarkt/Saturn parent) has been cleared by Germany’s competition authority, an example of how global players still see value in large-scale European store networks. (Bundeskartellamt)
5) Shopping goes live: “QVC on steroids,” powered by community
Live commerce is not just a format. It’s a psychological shift.
When shopping becomes live, it becomes social. It creates urgency, shared attention, and emotional trust, especially when creators and communities are involved. In the session we described it bluntly as “QVC on steroids.”
And the money is following the behavior. Research-and-markets reporting has projected the U.S. social commerce market at around $114.7B in 2025, with continued growth expected through 2030. (Business Wire)
For retailers, the hard part is not video. The hard part is operating live: inventory accuracy, real-time pricing, fulfillment promises, returns, fraud controls, and brand governance, while the world is watching.
6) Hyper-personalization: the line between helpful and invasive
Personalization used to mean “people who bought X also bought Y.”
That era is ending.
In the session we discussed a world where retailers combine massive streams of behavioral data with AI that can process it in seconds, and turn it into real-time decisions and tailored experiences.
It sounds exciting, until it becomes uncomfortable.
Because the biggest challenge of hyper-personalization won’t be technology. It will be the moment a customer feels the system crossed the line, from assistance to manipulation.
Retailers that win here will be the ones who can answer one simple question with integrity:
“Are we using data to serve the customer or to corner the customer?”
7) Checkout disappears, and the POS becomes “everywhere”
One of the most important changes in 2026 may also be the least cinematic.
Checkout is quietly disappearing.
We are moving toward one-tap flows, tokenized credentials, biometrics, and “just leave” experiences.
At the same time, softPOS turns any phone or tablet into a checkout—on a parking lot, at a concert, in a pop-up store, at the shelf.
This is where my world, compliance and fiscalization, collides with retail innovation.
When checkout becomes “anywhere,” compliance must also become “anywhere.” And the complexity is not equal across jurisdictions.
The winners will be the retailers and POS platforms that separate two layers cleanly:
The experience layer can evolve fast.
The transaction + compliance layer must stay correct, auditable, and resilient.
The conclusion: less transactional, more human
After all the AI, automation, and new channels, it’s easy to miss the irony.
The end-state is not a colder retail world.
It is a retail world that feels less transactional, and, if done right, far more human.
Because the future is not about replacing humans with machines.
It’s about removing friction, so relationships can scale.
Watch the recording and join the conversation: https://www.linkedin.com/events/theretailtrendsthatwillshape2027401946130407800833/