What will 2026 bring to retailers and brands? Our extensive library of research provides an instructive narrative of what companies should prepare for in the coming year. We’ve identified seven shopper movements, and the 2026 predictions they suggest, here.

Retailers and Brands, We Have a New Year’s Gift for You.

WSL Strategic Retail turned to our “crystal ball of research” to see into the future. We culled through our content and studies, including online surveys with thousands of U.S. shoppers, monthly Retail Safari® adventures, and interviews with retailers around the world, to predict how shoppers will define the retail experience in 2026.

Here’s the good news:

In spite of 2025’s financial and social chaos, new generations of powerful consumers and a threatening decline of shopper trust the year ended with a bang: an estimated 4.2% increase in holiday spending, according to Visa. This suggests shoppers are proving to be remarkably resilient and willing to guide retailers to a prosperous 2026 ­– if retailers and brands follow them.

7 Shopper Movements to Prepare for in 2026 

Shopper Movement 1: Uncertainty is for Certain

Even as 2025 concluded with positive holiday sales and a stock market, the shadow of uncertainty will block sunny optimism from many shoppers’ minds. Habits are hard to break, and economic disruption – particularly when it pertains to financial insecurity – has become a pattern from 2008 to 2025. Doubt breeds suspicion and threatens loyalty, and sure enough, the majority of consumers told us they believe manufacturers care less about quality now than in years’ past.

Our 2026 prediction: Retailers should use loyalty as relationship currency, with its largest denominations being transparency, care and shared values. Our “crisis” studies continue to serve as a road map of what to expect in the next one (and shoppers believe there will be one).

Shopper Movement 2: Invisible Retail is the New Answer to Shopper Convenience

Fully integrated online-offline shopping, or connected-commerce, isn’t just influencing the shopper experience across all touchpoints. It’s also influencing the shopper. The result is a population of powerful connected consumers who are inspiring retailers to take convenience to surprising levels, from reinvented in-store displays to highly creative but practical membership perks. This change also is forcing smart retailers to adjust their distribution strategies from traditional channels and formats to experiential moments, or “branded touchpoints.”

Our 2026 prediction: These connected consumers will expect retailers to be invisible – seamless, predictive and frictionless – across all such branded touchpoints. Brands and retailers that pay attention would do well by simply finding ways for their customers get what they need, faster.

Shopper Movement 3: Shoppers Expect Retail to Reflect Like an Identity Mirror

In light of the financial whiplash and social trauma that defined the past two decades (and are poised to shape 2026), more shoppers are expanding their traditional value formulas beyond stubbornly high prices. They seek evidence of their deep-rooted beliefs and culture when calculating a retailer’s and brand’s value to them. This new value formula is guiding what and where this growing segment of the population will spend their money. To gain trust and thrive, retailers and brands must find ways to reflect cultural values in the shopper experience.

Our 2026 prediction: The stores likely to capture the “new value” shopper’s attention will be destination hubs, blending shopping, entertainment and community to become partners, not just chains.

Shopper Movement 4: The Re-Use of Old Platforms…Lessons from Flagship Revivals

In the past five or so years, shoppers have made the circular economy the norm, prizing retailers that integrate resale, rental and reuse. We spot evidence of some retailers applying the same thinking to their physical platforms, discovering effective approaches to repurpose old-school brick channels, including department stores. And, as in the circular economy, the features that attract shoppers to these restored stores are steeped in the wistfulness of connection, surprise and security.

Our 2026 prediction: Shoppers have made it clear that even secondhand goods can take on new meaning and enhanced value to the user. Brands and retailers can attract spending-cautious shoppers not by selling “stuff,” but by bringing their brands to life through discovery, trust and connection.

Shopper Movement 5: The ‘Bookend’ Age Groups Matter Today

Years of our WSL Strategic Retail data reveals many ways the oldest and youngest consumers adapt to a spectrum of change, from financial roller coasting to the evolving expectations of wellness and beauty. Not surprisingly, how consumers accommodate these changes in their shopping lives differs among the generations. However, one element persists regardless of age or gender: the pursuit of joy. This silver lining presents achievable chances for brands and retailers to gain relevance among those 60 and older, or younger than 18.

Our 2026 prediction: Shoppers of all ages will be drawn to retailers and brands that use joy as a core strategy and embed nostalgia, humor and delight in their retail experience cross categories. The trick is recognizing what joy means to each demographic.

Shopper Movement 6: Wellness Will Become the Default Across All Categories 

It’s not just food and vitamins. Wellness is becoming a standard expectation in food, fashion, home, travel, as well as most consumer and lifestyle businesses, thanks in part to technology’s seamless infusion into everyday life and culture. For example, AI’s role as a wellness shopping tool is already pervasive, yet few shoppers think about it while using it. In the wellness category specifically this presents significant opportunities.

Our 2026 prediction: AI will take on a significant, transformative role in the shoppers’ quest for wellness and better health. However, retailers and brands will be tasked with using the vast amounts of AI data they collect to see the human behind the data and putting that consumer first.

Shopper Movement 7: Beauty is Blending Across Store Categories

Wellness isn’t the only pervasive category. Thanks in part to a broadening market base (including pre-teen girl and boy consumers), beauty products are penetrating unorthodox categories of physical and digital retail, including even food. This is by design: Retailers merchandise electrolyte powder by workout gear and use themed characters to weave beauty into disparate categories, such as tools. The expansion of beauty across the store opens the category to all genders and ages, reinforcing beauty as a lifestyle benefit that can be inspirational, easy and low pressure.

Our 2026 prediction: More non-beauty brands will seize the opportunity to benefit from the beauty market surge. To pull it off, however, the pairings must be intuitive and aligned to lifestyles. Shoppers will quickly spot clunky curation and find it disingenuous.

A Crystal Ball Won’t Really Guide Retail, But Our Research and Insights Can.

Empower yourself to be more relevant, caring and in-demand among shoppers in 2026. Access our shopper insights, retail innovations and retail research libraries to learn how our tailored studies and advisory support can guide your future.