Retail

Who Was Really Shopping in 2025: You or AI?

Over the last 12 months, shopping no longer followed the familiar pattern of search, scroll, compare, and decide. For many consumers, that work had already been outsourced, whether they knew it or not, to AI. Across retail, ecommerce, and digital experience,...

Commerce is Changing Fast with Agentic AI and Social Shopping, But Customer Service and Trust Remain Top Buyer Priorities

In a world where consumers can buy a product using their chatbot or virtual assistant, without even visiting a webstore, that pace of retail evolution continues to change with agents helping make those transactions more nuanced. As AI agents, new...

Tesco Plans Customer Experience Boost With New AI Partnership

Tesco has been on a major customer experience push in recent years, working with a range of partners, like Eagle AI, to deliver new experiences in-store, online and for Clubcard shoppers. Having doubled the size of its technology team over...

Customer Experience 2025 Events Roundup, and the Big Shows Coming Your Way in 2026

2025 was a busy year for customer experience events. Analyst firms, vendors, experts and end-user markets all welcomed CXM to listen to the great and good speak, and show off the latest software and technology. And we’re revving up for...

Americans Spent More This Holiday Season, Across Stores, Screens, and Experiences

Holiday spending in the U.S. went up this year compared to last, even as people felt more uneasy about the economy. According to new data from Visa and Klarna, shoppers were still willing to spend, but they were more careful...

Customer Experience Fails of 2025; Hacks, IT Failures, Management and Human Error

For all the CX success stories, there have been plenty of failures across the year. Not all were headline-worthy, but these fails act as a salutary warning to businesses, typically those over-reliant on their software and AI services. We’ve already...

KPMG’s Customer Experience Excellence Report Highlights Global CX Trends

KPMG has just published its 2025-26 report on customer experience excellence. It naturally focuses on the rise of agentic AI across the traditional areas of CX principles, based on over 80,000 interviews across 2,600+ brands. The 46-page report, badged as “Redefining...

Jo Malone London Tests AI in Digital Fragrance Consultations

Buying fragrance online has long been one of retail’s hardest experience problems to solve. Without scent strips, samples or face-to-face consultation, consumers are often left guessing, especially first-time buyers unsure how to translate emotion or personal taste into a bottle...

US Senator Calls for Federal Investigation into Shein and Temu over Counterfeit Goods

A U.S. Republican senator has called on federal authorities to open a formal investigation into fast-growing online retailers Shein and Temu, escalating regulatory scrutiny over alleged intellectual property violations and the sale of counterfeit goods. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas has...

AI Arrived in Retail. Did Better CX Come With It?

AI in retail arrived at full speed. Shoppers now use AI to research products, compare prices, browse reviews and hunt deals, yet a simple question still hangs in the air: has any of this actually made shopping better? New UK research...

CXM’s November Catch-Up and December CX Events Roundup

November may have come grinding to a halt due to Thanksgiving, but there was still plenty of action earlier on, with lots coming in December to keep an eye on. The highlight for the CXM team was definitely awards night for...

Consumer Discovery Goes Real-Time At Tech for Retail, Paris

The Tech for Retail show hit Paris this week, at Paris Expo, Porte de Versailles. The show offered a close-up look at what’s changing in the drive for stronger in-store and online customer experiences. At the event were the usual mix...