In a conversation presented by Listrak, Jamie Elden, chief revenue officer of Listrak, sat down with Amanda Smith, chief executive officer of Fairchild Media Group, to give an overview of 2025 and a look at the future of retail.
This year, there were major concerns across the retail landscape with the uncertainty of tariffs and headwinds — 44 percent of retailers Listrak spoke with expected flat growth for 2025.
But in the company’s midyear survey, 60 percent expected to meet or beat their 2024 numbers. Now there’s more confidence and optimism for the holiday and the end of the year than before. Brands and retailers are smarter — with the adoption of artificial intelligence learning and leaning into data analytics.
For Listrak, the key takeaways from the second half of 2025 are price sensitivity, supply chain uncertainty and AI adoption.
“Consumers over the past four to five years are now getting more used to sales, seasonal drops and limited edition,” said Elden. “This fills up a consumer’s calendar of when to buy and where they buy. Price-sensitive consumers are looking for the lowest price and other consumers are looking for the quality or experience.”
Notably, Millennials and Gen Z — more than 75 percent of consumers aged 14 to 28 — are focused on the overall experience they can get from the shopping journey. And the generational cohorts are valuing the experience they’re getting from brick-and-mortars more than discounts.
“There are a lot of companies that do a great job of being online and in person,” said Elden. “I live in New York — and one of my favorite, and my kid’s favorite, stores to go to is Nordstrom’s store on 57th street. That resonates with consumers in how they communicate down the chain, through email and across the board.”
Another defining moment in retail from this year was the tariffs announced by the Trump administration and the battles they’ve had with China over the past six months — which have made most retailers and brands uneasy and uncertain about the future.
But now that concern and alarm have largely dissipated, said Elden. The market has remained resilient with all the major changes and shifts by performing and outperforming expectations — “it’s all about agility and multimodal logistics.”
And unsurprisingly, brands are leaning into AI more than ever. While talk for the past few years has surrounded tech, it’s become a core part of the marketing and shopping tools — “AI adoption in fashion is critical to meet the consumers where they are.”
Looking ahead into 2026, Elden said it’s all about getting that much closer to the consumer — how to follow up with shoppers’ matters.
“Once someone’s purchased something, in store or from your website, how you follow up with a customer matters. Those that are still not adopting personalization on their website they’re not leveraging data from an SMS customer, it’s broken and in silos. For me, everything is about adoption — lean into to it. AI is not the big fear that everyone thinks it is,” concluded Elden.