Top Retail Industry Trends
While the retail industry is still focused on omnichannel initiatives, it has also undergone a rapid digital transformation. This was accelerated by the pandemic and is only heightened by the advancements in artificial intelligence, which have enhanced efficiency, automation and distribution throughout the retail supply chain. Technologies such as the metaverse and augmented reality are still very much in play, as are sustainability initiatives, from greener products to retailers reducing their energy needs and carbon footprints.
StartUs Insights recently researched the top retail industry trends based on its analysis of 2,500-plus companies. The company’s “Top 8 Retail Industry Trends & Innovations in 2025,” includes:
- Retail Fulfillment: Retailers are shaping their business and automation strategies around retail fulfillment to achieve better market penetration. The proliferation of last-mile delivery services and micro-fulfillment centers meets customer expectations for same-day or faster deliveries.
- Omnichannel Commerce: Retailers, both digital-native and brick-and-mortar, adopt a unified approach to captivate consumers. Integration of ecommerce and mobile commerce is a strategy employed by big box and small store retailers. Social media platforms and voice commerce are serving up new avenues for growth.
- In-Store Automation: To provide a better, hygienic, and safer in-store experience, retailers are using cleaning robots and chatbots that offer optimum times to visit stores. Inventory and shelf management technologies are also being developed.
- Smart Checkout: Contactless payments and cashier-less checkouts, powered by advanced technologies, are enhancing convenience and minimizing customer wait time.
- Immersive Customer Experience: Engaging experiences in shopping translate into loyalty from customers, ensuring repeated sales and minimizing product returns. Immersive technologies like AR and VR offer shoppers a new dimension of interaction, including virtual try-on, 3D product visualization, and personalized recommendations.
- Sustainability: As climate change impacts become more evident, customer consciousness about their shopping habits and lifestyles is increasing. This shift is leading startups and established retailers to incorporate sustainability into their product assortments and operations.
- Artificial Intelligence: In retail, technologies such as AI, natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), and deep learning (DL) are enhancing in-store operations and customer experiences.
- Big Data & Analytics: Insights into previously unmeasured retail metrics are now accessible through big data and analytics, revealing unexpected opportunities for process improvements.
Leveraging Insights in Innovation
During FEI 2025, Cherie Leonard, Senior Director, Head North America Insights at Colgate-Palmolive, NA, will hold a case study, “Insights Innovation in Retail.” Cherie Leonard has a dozen years of experience in retail insights. The past few years have been dynamic for the entire global economy—right down to the check-out aisle in your local store. That dynamism has led to a new retail reality that must be unpacked. Leonard not only unpacks the present but provides thoughts on how to face the future. This session serves any innovator who depends on another entity in the delivery of their product or service.
The session will further explore: plotting the trajectory of how retail is changing; realizing the patterns related to instore vs. digital retail; focusing in on consumer behavior through a digital lens; understanding private label prevalence and what to do about it; thwarting commercial-specific challenges with actionable insights; continuing to evolve GTM through an insights-innovation partnership.
The Insights-Innovation Partnership
All Things Insights further looked at the collaboration between insights and innovation with, “Insights Guiding Innovation Directions.” Consumer insights are like a compass and a guiding light for innovative directions across a broad range of industries, from advertising agencies to consumer-packaged goods brands to healthcare companies. They provide crucial direction and energy, helping businesses create products and services that truly resonate with their target audience. The blog also features links to several stories on All Things Innovation that looked at ways that insights have influenced innovation, through the lens of case studies and sessions highlighted at TMRE 2024.
A Retail Approach Through the Lens of Insights
While the pandemic certainly accelerated retail industry trends, the adoption of AI platforms has also increased the digital transformation of many retail and supply chain industries. No doubt, retailers will continue to explore new ways to reach and engage consumers. Distribution, retail, delivery, technology and the consumer experience will transform into the future in a variety of ways. Insights will play a key role in developing these trends to match customer needs.
During its research report, StartUs Insights also points to further developments in data science and sustainability as two key trends to watch as well: “While edge computing offers solutions for data processing in a cookieless environment, digitization introduces risks that startups are addressing through cybersecurity and data protection measures. Sustainability remains central, with technologies like AI, blockchain, IoT, and data analytics driving efforts toward net-zero retail.”
Video courtesy of Bernard Marr
