Matt Brovelli, Viare and eStar Chief Executive, shares his top tips for retailers to get ahead for 2026 and beyond.
2026 will reward retailers who make a few great decisions and then execute. Customer expectations around availability, delivery choice, speed and transparency remain high but the differentiation will come from how effectively retailers combine operational excellence with memorable brand experiences. The best retailers don’t chase every trend.
- Make deliberate, measurable AI investment
Focus AI investment where data quality is strong and value is clear. Define the use case, expected impact, and success measures upfront. Start small and prototype quickly. Scale only when outcomes can be measured.
- Remove low value friction, keep brand building moments
Not all friction is bad. Fit guidance, styling advice or intelligent recommendations can add value. A store stylist asking questions, a fit guide, or a curated “complete the look” prompt can be the moment a shopper understands your differentiation. The goal is to remove low value friction like steps that waste time, create confusion, or cause errors while preserving moments that differentiate and create confidence.
- Enable teams closest to the customer
The fastest path to better customer experience is enabling the people closest to the customer like store teams and customer service. They need real-time visibility and simple tools to confidently support customers. This can include things like locating stock, giving a clear order update, or resolving an exception quickly.
- Align technology with good process
Technology cannot fix poor process. They are linked and one can’t save the other on its own. A bad process implemented perfectly is a bad outcome. A good process without the right tooling becomes manual work and workarounds. Remember that integration is only the start. The best retailers continuously review performance, exceptions, and customer feedback.
- Eat the frog
Deferred investment creates backlogs in areas like inventory and fragmented fulfilment. This is the year to eat the frog. Pick the hard thing that unlocks everything else and commit to it. Strategy is reflected in where focus and investment are applied.
- Reduce single points of failure
2025 was a reminder that outages can bring businesses to a standstill. Every retailer has single points of failure like one system, one integration, one fulfilment node, or one key person. Identify them and then mitigate where possible through redundancy, monitoring, fallback processes, and clear incident playbooks. As AI increases productivity, there is pressure to move faster and speed without controls can reduce quality. Build resilience and governance.
- Invest in human connection
In retail, store staff and customer support teams are a huge part of the customer experience. Customers feel it when workflows are slow, clunky, or unclear. Give teams simple, fast tools so they can focus on styling, service, and relationships. In return, those team members create the moments that drive loyalty.
- Keep Improving, don’t stand still
Retail loyalty is built through people. Test changes, measure impact, keep what works, and remove what doesn’t. This applies to range and marketing, but also to operations like delivery promises, returns flows, store fulfilment, and service playbooks. Retailers that keep improving will outpace those waiting for the next big project to fix everything.
- Break down silos
Omnichannel success requires shared metrics and a single view of the customer. If eCommerce, stores, supply chain and customer service have conflicting goals and different versions of the truth, the customer feels the negative impact to their experience. While platforms can support omnichannel execution, what really matters is aligning teams and decision making so the business operates as one brand.
- Lean into what makes you different
Competing solely on speed or price is a race that reduces margin and your identity. Use operational strength to enable better service, loyalty and storytelling so customers remember why they chose you. Make it easy for customers to buy how they want and then make sure they remember why they bought from you.
Retailers strengthening their 2026 capabilities are increasingly reviewing their order management and inventory foundations. Viare helps omnichannel fulfilment and customer service through streamlined workflows, accurate stock and order visibility, and reliable integrations.
This is a partnered content series with Viare and eStar who has developed its technology over twenty years and helps facilitate more than $1.5B in annual sales online. Viare allows retailers to make all store stock available for sale and makes store-based fulfilment a competitive advantage. Its intelligent order management has been recognised by Gartner as one of the leading distributed order management systems in the world. www.viare.io