Modern Retail’s editorial team surveyed a half-dozen retail leaders, ranging from vice presidents at big corporations like Target and Lowe’s to founders of digitally native startups, to talk about how they plan to incorporate AI into their businesses in 2026.
Many founders had to completely upend their business models in 2025 due to tariffs, resorting to production delays, raising prices and putting off hiring to save their businesses.
This year, tariffs kicked in at their highest rate since the Great Depression, completely upending the retail industry. In turn, Modern Retail rounded up the biggest winners and losers of all the changes in tariff policy this year.
With a splashy new partnership with Khloé Kardashian’s Khloud popcorn, Starbucks is marrying its strategy of offering more on-trend items with relevant pop culture partnerships.
Amazon broke a long-standing holiday tradition in 2025 by not publishing a post–Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales recap, marking the first time in nearly a decade that the company has stayed silent after one of its biggest shopping periods.
The same hedge fund that pushed for change at Kellanova and Tylenol maker Kenvue now has its sights set on Target.
Scrubs brand Figs is setting up stores near medical centers and universities to better cater to its core clientele. Its fifth location opened in January, and it's planning more for 2026.
Many founders had to completely upend their business models in 2025 due to tariffs, resorting to production delays, raising prices and putting off hiring to save their businesses.
This year, tariffs kicked in at their highest rate since the Great Depression, completely upending the retail industry. In turn, Modern Retail rounded up the biggest winners and losers of all the changes in tariff policy this year.
Secondhand gifts are shedding their stigma this holiday season as shoppers, squeezed by tariffs and inflation, turn to thrift stores and resale platforms for thoughtful, lower-cost presents.
Online merchants say Amazon’s “Buy for Me” AI tool listed their products without permission, forcing them to opt out after the fact and raising concerns about brand control, customer trust and the impact of AI on shopping.
As retailers and tech giants race to build AI shopping agents, 2026 is shaping up as a pivotal year to see whether consumers embrace these tools — or whether hype outpaces real-world adoption.
Bradley Keefer, CRO, Keen Decision Systems In an environment of inflation, retail consolidation and heightened performance pressure, promotions have become the default lever for hitting short-term targets for retail brands. In fact, Numerator found that the overall volume of promotions has doubled in recent years, especially in digital, where digital temporary price reductions are up […]
Brands in the beauty and fashion space are extending NIL deals beyond one-off posts with female college athletes and even working with entire athletic departments.
AI adoption among marketers has almost doubled in the last three years, but optimized workflow integration has lagged behind. And marketers still struggle with technical integrations of agents and AI search strategies. AI search is reducing referral traffic through zero-click. Modern Retail’s annual AI report looks at different strategies to overcome future AI obstacles.
The partnership connects Walmart customer purchase data with Meta’s raft of influencers (via Instagram) to empower Creo to help brands identify potential creator partners.
Daily Harvest has kicked off the new year with a series of changes designed to make it easier for its products to fit into people’s daily lives, such as by dropping its subscription requirement.
Once limited to prestige brands, skinification is becoming table stakes across personal care aisles as people look for ingredient-specific solutions.
Cori Voorhees, partner marketing manager, Adobe For merchants, the holiday shopping season brings both opportunity and pressure. Shoppers go online with long gift lists and little patience, making even small checkout barriers a risk to conversion. That’s why many merchants have begun introducing quick, low-lift improvements that can be made even as consumer traffic peaks. […]
