Introduction
Coresight Research is a research partner of Shoptalk Fall 2025, which is taking place during September 17–19 at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, Illinois. Shoptalk Fall is an annual conference that unites executives from retailers, consumer brands and technology vendors to discuss emerging themes, innovations and the future of commerce. It serves as a complementary, second-half-of-the-year counterpart to Shoptalk Spring—offering industry leaders another strategic touchpoint to connect, collaborate and act on fast-moving trends.
In this report, we present highlights from the second day of the conference, categorized into three of the four major themes, which we presented in our guide to the event and that align with Coresight Research’s predictions for retail in 2025 and beyond:
- Data-Driven and AI-Augmented Retail Intelligence
- Product Curation and Innovation Under Pressure
- Brand Identity, Loyalty and Customer Experience in a Shifting World
- Leading Through Volatility and Change
Shoptalk Fall 2025 Day Two: Coresight Research Insights
1. Data-Driven and AI-Augmented Retail Intelligence
AI as a Driver of Retail Reinvention
Retail executives emphasized that AI in retail is no longer experimental—it is already delivering tangible gains in personalization, acquisition and productivity. But success requires disciplined deployment: aligning solutions with customer needs, building organizational fluency and recognizing AI as an enabler rather than a silver bullet.
For Lowe’s, AI is being applied across three core dimensions: how customers shop, how the company sells and how store teams work. Neelima Sharma, SVP, Omnichannel & Ecommerce Technology, Lowe’s, outlined innovations such as “Style Your Space,” a GenAI tool that allows customers to upload a photo of their home and receive personalized design recommendations. Lowe’s has also deployed semantic search capabilities to respond to problem-based queries (“show me patio furniture that fits my balcony”) and launched shopper assistants to provide design inspiration and answer product questions. Internally, AI is being used for inventory and assortment planning, as well as to streamline workflows for associates. “We don’t see AI as an initiative but another tool to solve our problems and reach objectives,” Sharma said.
At ThredUp, AI solutions vary for shoppers and sellers. The company rebuilt its search and merchandising engines using AI, resulting in a 60% improvement in customer acquisition rates and what Dan DeMeyere, Chief Technology & Product Officer, ThredUp, called a “transformed product funnel.” For sellers, new AI-powered tools are being piloted to improve the resale experience. However, DeMeyere cautioned against chasing hype. “We have built some AI experiences that were launched, had buzz, and then over time they fizzle out,” he admitted, stressing the importance of designing solutions around what customers truly want rather than the novelty of technology. To build internal capability and education, ThredUp launched an AI Bootcamp this year to educate teams on GenAI, Agentic AI and other innovations, supplemented by monthly hackathons.
For Tanger, AI adoption focuses on serving two constituencies: shoppers and tenants. The company uses data from its loyalty program to deliver highly targeted, personalized messaging that drives traffic to stores, ultimately benefitting tenants and supporting higher rental yields. Stephen Yalof, President & CEO, Tanger, highlighted early experiments with robotics in shopping centers, offering customers services, such as hands-free shopping, cleaning and security, while doubling as entertainment.
Looking ahead, panelists pointed to several areas of AI poised for rapid growth. DeMeyere described “AI atomic building blocks,” such as large language models as flexible “AI legos” that enable engineers to prototype solutions in hours rather than months. Sharma said the rise of intelligent AI agents that will handle increasingly complex tasks, while Yalof saw robotics as the next frontier for enhancing shopping center experiences.
The Next Frontier in Search
Search is no longer about keywords—it is becoming the central nervous system of retail, acting as both a cultural radar and a transactional bridge between shoppers and retailers. The future of search is moving to conversational, context-aware and agent-mediated experiences that will redefine how consumers discover products and how retailers must structure their data and content.
Michelle Goad, Chief Digital Officer, Athleta (owned by Gap Inc.), explained that her team now treats the search bar as the “marketing brief,” because customers signal exactly what they want through queries. She described how Athleta monitors search patterns as cultural signals—when Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl look went viral, they responded by curating and publishing content within an hour. She emphasized that AI allows her teams to merge creative and analytics workflows, reducing the time to launch content by half. For example, instead of laborious manual curation, AI now tags and sorts ads automatically, freeing up resources for strategic storytelling. She also highlighted that AI empowers experimentation, enabling the creation of multiple variations of product content and thumbnails to see which drives more product detail page (PDP) views. For Athleta, search is not just a function of navigation but a cultural listening tool that drives merchandising and marketing alignment.
Ranjeet Bhosale, VP Digital Product Management, Target, underscored the fundamental shift from keyword-based search to conversational queries. He noted that traditional two-word searches are giving way to natural language prompts like, “what’s a good gift for a 9-year-old?” To prepare for this, Target is investing heavily in foundational data infrastructure, ensuring that product details—price, promotions, availability and policies—are machine-readable. This is essential for the emerging model of “agent-to-agent commerce,” where customer assistants (like Alexa and Google) directly interact with retailer systems. He stressed that the best search experience is the one that feels invisible: reducing guest friction so effectively that shoppers no longer reformulate queries.
Erica Randerson, Chief Digital Officer & GM, Edible Brands, brought a perspective rooted in immediacy and gifting. She highlighted how Edible Brands has positioned itself as a franchise-first network of 700 stores capable of reaching 80% of US households within an hour. To meet this promise, AI plays a pivotal role in merchandising, delivery optimization and customer experience. Randerson emphasized the importance of metadata and markup for GEO (generative engine optimization) and AEO (answer engine optimization), ensuring that agents and large language models can interpret content. She framed search as a dialog rather than a static list, where queries like “mom’s birthday ends in two hours” must trigger instant, reliable results. She cautioned against chasing AI headlines without proper data foundations, stressing that readiness begins with cleaning, structuring and mining data warehouses. For Edible Brands, AI-enhanced search is less about novelty and more about removing the “scavenger hunt” from shopping, providing a seamless shortcut in moments of urgency.
Strategic Pivots Enabled by Intelligence
Retail leaders agreed that successful pivots are less about bold new initiatives and more about making disciplined choices, often about what to stop doing. They highlighted the role of associates as critical advocates during transitions and stressed that pivots must be felt by customers in their experiences, not just announced in press releases.
Nicole Parry, Head of Merchandising, H&M Americas, emphasized that every heritage brand eventually confronts limits to its existing model. For H&M, with a fixed footprint of 600 stores, physical space constraints force clear decisions about what to prioritize and what to cut. Parry explained that merchandising is always about “small pivots,” but the speed of trend cycles today demands faster, sharper calls. She acknowledged that resources—both store capacity and team bandwidth—are finite, so being decisive about what not to do is as critical as pursuing new opportunities. By simplifying key process indicators (KPIs) to sales, profit and speed, H&M ensures pivots are tangible and actionable across the organization. Communicating even small successes helps teams stay aligned and motivated through transition, Parry added.
Bruce Smith, Founder & Chairman of Hydrow, described pivoting as “a euphemism for near death.” Hydrow’s crisis came after the pandemic, when rising interest rates and customer acquisition costs made its growth model unsustainable. Smith responded with drastic measures: halving the workforce from 200 to 100, cutting marketing spend and slashing technology investments. These painful choices restored profitability and created clarity. He noted that leadership in such moments requires balancing flexibility with focus—knowing when to compromise, such as in the supply chain, and when to double down, such as investing in AI to strengthen connected fitness hardware and software. Smith also shared how Hydrow pursued acquisitions to expand into broader wellness categories, positioning itself not just as a rowing company but as a multi-modal health platform. Transparency, even about bad news, was essential in winning trust from employees and investors during these changes.
Karina Dolgin, Chief Product & Revenue Officer, James Avery Jewelry, shared how subtle signals from legacy customers became the catalyst for a strategic pivot. While new customers interacted digitally, legacy customers—who shopped up to 12 times a year—voiced dissatisfaction directly to store associates. By listening to frontline staff, the company learned that long-time customers felt disconnected. Dolgin’s team reintroduced one archival product per month from the brand’s 70-year history, half of which sold out quickly. This tactical move became a strategic pillar, reinforcing the brand’s artisan heritage and deepening loyalty without chasing fleeting fashion cycles. Dolgin explained that gaining operational alignment was critical: she pitched the idea first to supply chain leaders before presenting to the board, ensuring feasibility and support. Her mantra of “freedom within a framework” captured the balance between creative experimentation and strategic discipline.
2. Product Curation and Innovation Under Pressure
Scaling Beyond Pilots
Many retailers excel at launching pilots, but few manage to scale them into sustainable programs that deliver long-term value. Success requires a combination of agility to pivot quickly, authenticity to maintain consumer trust and infrastructure to support growth. Customer-centric iteration, merchant engagement and cross-functional collaboration are the keys to scaling pilots into future growth engines.
George Chang, GM, Shein USA Marketplace, explained that scaling a marketplace required developing an entirely new “muscle.” Unlike Shein’s traditional fast-fashion model, the marketplace must serve two customers simultaneously: end consumers and merchants. To build strong relationships, Shein hosts five seller events annually and runs regular workshops to gather feedback. This merchant engagement loop has been essential in refining assortments and driving growth. Chang shared how analytics-driven insights guide adjustments: when premium Halloween costumes generated traffic but low conversion, Shein worked with suppliers to lower prices without sacrificing quality. Conversely, when supplements began converting strongly after discovery, they prioritized surfacing these products more prominently.
Shein announced yesterday its partnership with Amazon’s multi-channel fulfillment service to further enhance logistics capabilities. Chang also highlighted how customer evolution drives category expansion. A 2023 partnership with Children’s Place “blew away expectations,” signaling that Shein’s Gen Z shoppers are entering new life stages, such as parenthood, and prompting expansion into kids’ categories.
Michael Jacobs, Chief Growth Officer, Consortium Brands, described scaling UGC while protecting brand equity. Jacobs warned that after years of investment in building a brand story, it would be reckless to “hand over the keys” to influencers who lack authenticity. Instead, Consortium Brands seeks creators who are genuine customers, using tools like Yotpo to identify reviewers whose voices resonate. He emphasized that ROI comes from “brand love and connection,” not paid promotion. To ensure alignment, the Consortium established a cross-functional structure linking affiliate and influencer teams across its portfolio brands. This coordination ensures that workflows are consistent with brand positioning before scaling user-generated content (UGC) programs. By anchoring its approach in authenticity and internal collaboration, Consortium builds UGC initiatives that amplify rather than dilute brand identity.
Enna Allen, SVP Marketing, Simon Property Group, shared the journey behind Simon+, a loyalty program over two decades in the making. Allen explained that creating a program valuable to both shoppers and retailers required first laying a foundation through earlier initiatives: the VIP Shopper Club built a database of engaged customers, the Mall Insider Program drove awareness of events, Shop Simon extended the mall experience online and Simon Search enabled shoppers to check local product availability. These programs cultivated consumer behaviors and infrastructure that ultimately supported Simon+. Building Simon+ demanded extensive cross-functional collaboration, involving operations, leasing, product development and digital teams. The program launched in beta in August, with early results showing strong engagement from consumers and retailers alike. Allen highlighted that retailers benefit in three ways: acquisition of new shoppers, incremental visits and measurable omnichannel impact.
George Chang, GM, Shein USA Marketplace
Source: Shoptalk Fall
Storytelling Through Video and Streaming
Streaming is no longer a passive medium but a dynamic, multi-screen environment—across TV, mobile and other devices—where retail storytelling must capture fragmented attention spans while delivering measurable outcomes. With nearly all viewers multitasking and many shopping simultaneously, brands must treat streaming as both an entertainment platform and a commerce engine. Success depends on creating shoppable formats, leveraging AI to improve creative quality and viewing streaming as a canvas for innovation across devices.
Wayne Purboo, VP Amazon Shopping Video, Amazon Ads, shared results demonstrating the tangible impact of shoppable video. On Amazon’s PDPs, adding shoppable video content delivered a 22% increase in sales and simultaneously lowered return rates by providing shoppers with better product context. Purboo emphasized the power of live formats like Shop the Game, which integrated commerce into NFL broadcasts. These formats turned shopping into a real-time experience, blurring the line between content and commerce. He predicted that the future of retail media will be in embedding purchase opportunities seamlessly within entertainment, meeting consumers in the flow of their existing behaviors.
Tony Marlow, Chief Marketing Officer, LG Ad Solutions, highlighted the realities of today’s viewing habits: 95% of viewers multitask while watching TV, and 30% are actively shopping on mobile devices at the same time. For Marlow, this behavior is not a challenge but an opportunity. He pointed to AI’s role in democratizing access to high-quality creative production, particularly for local advertisers who have traditionally struggled with low-budget ad quality.
Jordan Rost, Head of Ad Marketing, Roku, positioned streaming as a new creative canvas for retail storytelling. Unlike traditional TV, streaming enables both mass reach and precise measurement, making it an ideal medium for retail media strategies. Rost stressed that streaming is not just a place for repurposed TV ads but an environment where brands can experiment with interactive formats, shoppable content and cross-device storytelling. He pointed to campaigns that integrated connected TV with mobile follow-up ads as examples of how to extend engagement across devices and drive measurable conversion outcomes.
3. Brand Identity, Loyalty and Customer Experience in a Shifting World
Creativity That Connects
Building brand loyalty in today’s fragmented environment requires more than personalization engines—it requires authentic storytelling, cultural resonance, and a balance between technological innovation and the human touch. Brands that succeed are those that can combine AI-driven insights with creativity, enabling them to both meet functional needs and connect emotionally with consumers.
Debbie Woloshin, Chief Marketing Officer, Stitch Fix, described how her company embodies this hybrid approach. Stitch Fix leverages AI for data-driven personalization, matching customers with clothing that suits their size, preferences and lifestyle. But Woloshin emphasized that it is the human stylists who deliver trust and empathy, making customers feel understood. She cited the mantra: “We are powered by AI, but styled by humans.” Programs, such as Retail Therapy and Unscripted, use client stories as content, bringing community and authenticity into the brand narrative. Meanwhile, Stitch Fix is piloting new tools, including virtual try-ons, conversational commerce and Stylist Notes, to deepen engagement. These tools are designed not to replace stylists but to augment their creativity and efficiency, demonstrating how AI and human intuition can work hand-in-hand to create stronger customer relationships.
Debbie Woloshin, Chief Marketing Officer, Stitch Fix (Right); and Gaurav Pant, Co-Founder & Chief Insights Officer, Incisiv (Interviewer)
Source: Shoptalk Fall
Next-Gen Brand Building
For next-generation consumers, brands must be fast, flexible and culturally relevant while maintaining trust through authenticity and sustainability. Leaders must balance speed with discipline, ensuring that newness does not come at the expense of brand equity.
Ciaran Long, CEO, a.k.a. Brands, detailed how the group manages a portfolio aimed squarely at Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers. With brands like Princess Polly and Culture Kings, the model balances rapid product turnover with repeat products that deliver stability. Princess Polly introduces around 150 new styles weekly but initially launches them in runs of just 100 units to test demand—scaling only those that resonate. Long stressed that while speed is essential, the goal is not indiscriminate volume but disciplined iteration. Physical retail is playing a growing role: Culture Kings’ 13,000-square-foot Las Vegas flagship is more than a store—it is an entertainment destination, complete with a bar, recording studio and UFC octagon. Long also highlighted the role of micro-influencers in sustaining authenticity, as well as the company’s sustainability commitments and B-Corp certification, which strengthen trust with younger consumers who demand accountability alongside innovation.
Cultural Relevance and Heritage
As demographics shift and consumer expectations evolve, brands must ground themselves in cultural insight and heritage while remaining adaptable to new social dynamics. Relevance now requires meeting consumers where they are—across cultures, across life stages and across emerging channels.
Brands that fail to reflect cultural nuance in their content and campaigns risk losing relevance. Leah Johns, Head of Global Consumer Lab, Bain & Company, discussed broader demographic changes shaping the consumer landscape: aging populations, new family structures and rising loneliness. She noted that consumers are transferring expectations across categories—demanding the same convenience in apparel as they do from Spotify or Netflix. Suzanne Silverstein, CEO, Silver Jeans Co., described how her company revitalized its brand by clarifying its DNA, reconnecting with its heritage and leaning into cultural activations. Events like denim-themed line dancing not only celebrated heritage but also generated 9.8 million impressions, showing how culture-driven activations can amplify reach while reinforcing brand identity.