Commerce rewired: Kantar's 2026 POV

Forging tomorrow’s value in a volatile retail world

Discover our 2026 retail themes

A strategic POV for a year of volatility

In 2026, resilience, relevance, and relationships are no longer optional. They are competitive requirements. Retailers and suppliers face rising costs, fractured partnerships, private label pressure, and increasingly nonlinear shopper journeys.

Kantar’s Commerce Rewired framework brings clarity to this complexity, outlining the essential shifts needed to stay competitive as retail continues to evolve.

This report is designed to help you:

  • Navigate economic and operational volatility

  • Strengthen collaboration across the value chain

  • Protect and grow value beyond price

  • Win shopper trust while reducing friction


Reach out to your client representative or switchon@kantar.com for more information.

 


INSIGHTS
Retail's systemic stability is shifting across macroeconomic, retailer, supplier and shopper

To forge tomorrow’s value, stakeholders across the value chain — from supplier to shopper — must establish new, flexible links that prioritize resilience and real-time relevance.

For brands and retailers to win in this landscape, they must treat 2026 not as an endpoint, but as the opening chapter of a far more profound transformation ahead.


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Our retail themes

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Rethinking resilience

Flexible supply chains for unpredictable conditions

Policy changes, climate disruption, tariffs, and security risks are driving unprecedented cost volatility. Winning organizations are rethinking resilience by building flexibility into operations, supply chains, and investment decisions to withstand constant disruption.

 

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Fractured collaboration

When short-term precision collides with long-term uncertainty

Retailers’ focus on immediate performance is increasingly at odds with the long-term investment needs of suppliers. This tension is reshaping assortment decisions, shelf space, and partnership models.



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Future-proofing value

Growth beyond price in a private label world

Manufacturers can no longer rely on pricing to sustain growth. Rising retail media costs and stronger private labels demand new value strategies rooted in real-time data, relevance, and execution.



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Recalibrating relationships

Winning trust in nonlinear shopper journeys

AI-enabled personalization is making individual shoppers more visible, even as their paths to purchase become more fragmented. Trust, effort, and friction now define success.






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FURTHER READING

8 agentic commerce predictions for 2026

Here are Kantar’s predictions for how commerce will actually change in 2026, ordered from foundational to commercial.

Read more >






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