As we gear up for 2025, it’s essential to reflect on the strategies that propelled success in 2024 and determine how to carry these winning trends into the new year. From omnichannel mastery to AI-driven insights and collaborative innovation, here are the top trends that reshaped retail in 2024—and how you can leverage them for growth in 2025.
Omnichannel Is Non-Negotiable
Shoppers demand seamless experiences across every touchpoint. Gone are the days when customers tolerated disconnected online and in-store experiences. Now, brands must deliver integrated, convenient and personalized shopping journeys.
Take Sephora and Lowe’s, for example. By placing customers at the heart of their strategies, these retail giants thrived in 2024. Sephora blended physical and digital touchpoints, empowering shoppers with tools like virtual try-ons and personalized recommendations. Lowe’s enhanced its customer experience by integrating online inventory checks with in-store assistance, ensuring shoppers could easily navigate both worlds.
Get inspired: Winning at Omnichannel in a Customer-Led World explores how top retailers make omnichannel strategies work.
AI Turns Insights Into Action
AI transformed from a buzzword into a business-critical tool in 2024, reshaping how retailers approached marketing and customer engagement. Brands that embraced AI unlocked the power of hyper-personalization, optimizing customer journeys and reaping major ROI gains.
AI-powered solutions enabled retailers to harness massive amounts of data to identify patterns, predict behavior and deliver tailored messaging. Whether it was streamlining product recommendations or crafting dynamic, data-driven campaigns, AI proved its value as a must-have technology for competitive brands.
Explore how AI can work for you: Check out 5 Ways AI Can Turbocharge Your Holiday Marketing to see AI in action.
Collaboration Fuels Growth
Aligned teams deliver transformative results. In 2024, brands that prioritized collaboration between departments unlocked new levels of innovation and efficiency.
Tapestry, the parent company of Coach and Kate Spade, exemplified this with its CIO-CMO partnership. By aligning their tech and marketing teams, Tapestry built unified customer profiles that powered seamless purchasing journeys. This cross-functional collaboration not only improved the customer experience but also drove significant business growth.
Learn from their success: Dive into How Tapestry Aligned Its CIO and CMO for Digital Success for actionable insights.
Ready to Go Deeper?
The 2025 CommerceNext Growth Show, happening June 24-26 in the heart of commerce, NYC is your chance to explore these trends and more. Join 2,700+ retail leaders to learn, network and shape the future of retail.
Secure your spot now to stay ahead of the curve and lead your brand to success in 2025!
