Guide

Mid-Year 2025 Retail Trends Scorecard

A Sneak Peek at What’s Shifting as We Head Into Peak Season

As the retail industry enters the all-important peak trading season, now is the moment for merchandising and planning leaders to assess whether the year is unfolding as predicted—and what still needs to shift to close 2025 strong and enter 2026 with momentum.

This mid-year scorecard is strictly aligned to the original Retail 2025 eBook forecast. It unpacks what’s on track, what’s changed, and where urgency is building. Each trend includes a snapshot of mid-year performance, adjacent signals gaining traction, and how strategic weighting is evolving as planning focus turns to Q4 and beyond.

1. Personalization Meets Operational Efficiency

2025 Prediction:
15% of retailers using GenAI for product recommendations. Retailers should use AI to build customer-focused assortments, starting with attribution in merchandise planning.

Mid-2025 Reality:
GenAI has grown in marketing and customer experience, but few have embedded it into planning systems. Attribution remains disconnected from assortment execution.

Emerging Signal:
Retail media networks and AI-generated product content are expanding fast—but operational alignment is lagging.

2026 Priority Shift:
⬆ Increased – Personalization must now be grounded in upstream attribution and planning accuracy.

2. Tackling Inventory Complexity

2025 Prediction:
Retailers need real-time inventory visibility, unified DTC/wholesale models, and nearshoring to improve agility.

Mid-2025 Reality:
Inventory distortion persists. Unified inventory systems remain rare. Nearshoring is happening slower than expected.

Emerging Signal:
AI-led allocation and fulfillment balancing are gaining traction in apparel and fast-turn categories.

2026 Priority Shift:
⬆ Significantly Higher – Inventory execution is now a core driver of both margin and availability.

3. Getting Ahead of Trends

2025 Prediction:
Social commerce accelerates trend cycles. Seasonless assortments help retailers respond faster and reduce waste.

Mid-2025 Reality:
Trend cycles are indeed shortening, but most merchandising calendars remain fixed and inflexible.

Emerging Signal:
AI-powered trend monitoring and SKU lifecycle planning tools are being piloted in leading fashion retailers.

2026 Priority Shift:
⬆ Up – Agility is now tied to profitability. Seasonless planning needs to be operationalized.

4. Sustainability in the Spotlight

2025 Prediction:
Planning must embed circularity and sustainability KPIs. Financial modeling should include measurable eco impact.

Mid-2025 Reality:
EU regulation (e.g., Digital Product Passport) is accelerating adoption, but North America is slower to integrate sustainability into financial and range planning.

Emerging Signal:
Product-level carbon modeling and waste analytics tools are appearing—but rarely at scale.

2026 Priority Shift:
➡ Stable, but more complex – Remains a priority, but compliance pressures now make execution non-negotiable.

5. Demand Forecasting: The Backbone of Retail

2025 Prediction:
Forecasting should integrate internal and external signals—macro, sentiment, social—and support AI scenario planning.

Mid-2025 Reality:
Forecast accuracy has plateaued (~65%). Use of external signals is still inconsistent. Scenario modeling is often ad hoc.

Emerging Signal:
Collaborative forecast orchestration across merchandising, finance, and supply chain is gaining traction.

2026 Priority Shift:
⬆ Elevated – Forecasting is moving from analytics to alignment across commercial and operational teams.

6. Embracing Dynamic Pricing

2025 Prediction:
Static pricing is no longer sustainable. Retailers need dynamic pricing to respond to market conditions and protect margins.

Mid-2025 Reality:
Adoption is lagging. Most dynamic pricing initiatives are isolated to ecommerce promotions or markdowns.

Emerging Signal:
Personalized pricing in apps and loyalty programs is advancing faster than enterprise-wide pricing logic.

2026 Priority Shift:
⬆ Rising – Especially critical in apparel, FMCG, and digital-native sectors facing margin pressure.

7. Integrating Advanced Technologies

2025 Prediction:
Retail AI must be explainable, aligned to KPIs, and embedded in workflows—not delivered as “black box” outputs.

Mid-2025 Reality:
AI is expanding, but remains disconnected from day-to-day planner workflows. Trust, usability, and ownership remain blockers.

Emerging Signal:
Planner-facing copilots and override-enabled AI systems are emerging in forecasting, scenario modeling, and pricing.

2026 Priority Shift:
⬆ Critical – AI must now enable confident decision-making, not just generate suggestions.

8. Enhancing Customer Experience Through Convenience

2025 Prediction:
Retailers must balance speed, consistency, and cost across omnichannel fulfillment to meet high customer expectations.

Mid-2025 Reality:
CX expectations remain high. Rising delivery and return costs are eroding profitability. Fulfillment is still fragmented.

Emerging Signal:
Unified commerce strategies—integrating store and digital inventory, pricing, and service—are gaining momentum.

2026 Priority Shift:
⬆ Up – Experience will be judged on execution agility and cost-to-serve, not just service quality.

Summary for Merchandising and Retail Leaders

The direction of travel outlined in the Retail 2025 eBook remains valid—but timelines are compressing, and expectations are rising.
Leaders must now shift from insight to execution, from pilots to platforms, and from planning for agility to planning with agility.

The rest of 2025 isn’t just about navigating peak—it’s about laying the groundwork for a more integrated, signal-driven, and planner-empowered 2026.

Call to Action

✔ Run this scorecard with your planning, finance, and merchandising teams as a strategic checkpoint.
✔ Prioritize attribution, inventory precision, and forecast orchestration as execution-critical in 2026.
✔ Shift your AI tools from insights to embedded decision support. Trust and transparency are non-negotiable.
✔ Don’t wait until January—your 2026 planning starts with how you finish Q4 2025.

The retailers that win next year will be the ones already acting now.