Retail is undergoing an accelerated transformation, driven by technology, personalization, and customer experience, aspects that merge into a unified journey. Events like NRF 2025, the most relevant in the retail and consumer industry worldwide, which took place in January in the U.S., reinforce that the sector can no longer postpone strategic changes, as the present moment already demands new approaches to remain competitive.
Among the key highlighted trends presented at NRF, five prove essential for brands that want to lead this new era of retail.
The unified journey: a seamless experience
The consumer journey is increasingly integrated, with the lines between the physical and digital worlds blurring. NRF 2025 highlighted the importance of offering a seamless experience, that is, fluid, in free translation, where the customer can start a purchase online and complete it in-store or vice versa.
This customer interaction cycle requires:
- Channel integration: a holistic view of the customer, with shared data across different touchpoints;
- Personalization: offering personalized products and services at each stage of the journey, from discovery to post-sale; and
- Ease: simplifying the shopping experience with agile and intuitive processes.
In the U.S., Starbucks is a successful example in implementing the seamless journey. The coffee chain demonstrates that retail, across different regions and business models, is replacing the fragmented view of shopping with a holistic approach that connects and integrates—with personalization and convenience—all consumer touchpoints.
It also leaves another lesson: not to stagnate with success. Even in the face of the good results achieved, Deb Hall Lefevre, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Starbucks, emphasized in the panel on digital transformation that the company ‘hasn’t gotten there yet.’ For her, there is still much work to be done given the diversity of franchises and business models spread across the country’s regions. Starbucks’ purpose, according to the executive, is to continue advancing in unifying its channels to better serve customers. In Lefevre’s words, ‘it all boils down, once again, to a consistent touch experience.’
Retail Media 2.0: the audience at the center of strategies
Retail Media is evolving into a new era where the combination of data and behavior allows building consumer profiles with ever-greater precision. This transformation has significant implications for retail:
- Segmented audience: the ability to identify and segment the audience granularly enables more targeted and effective campaigns;
- Personalized messages: creating personalized messages that resonate with each consumer’s needs and interests; and
- Results optimization: measuring campaign impact and optimizing strategies in real time.
In the words of Pete Nordstrom, President and Chief Brand Officer of Nordstrom, ‘the consumer journey, once fragmented, now unifies into an omnichannel, personalized, and highly technological experience.’ The company, founded as a shoe store in 1901 in Seattle, is a benchmark in innovation and shopping experience.
Located next to Central Park, Nordstrom’s flagship store focused on selling exclusive luxury items for women. It combined the high value of brands like Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent with two floors of proprietary restaurants and cafés and ultra-personalized sewing and makeup services offered by ‘Beauty Services.’ To illustrate the integration and convenience capabilities, a customer at the flagship can order a drink from one of the restaurants while trying on a dress. If they choose to have their meal at home, the establishments deliver to the requested address.
Analyzing cases like Nordstrom’s makes it clear that the future of retail is marked by the convergence of physical and digital.
Artificial Intelligence: the key to data analysis
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing how companies analyze and interpret large volumes of data. At NRF 2025, the importance of AI for:
- Demand forecasting: anticipating consumer needs and optimizing inventory;
- Mass personalization: creating personalized experiences for millions of customers; and
- Price optimization: setting dynamic prices based on demand and consumer behavior.
This means AI impacts decision-making, and this is a revolution that is just beginning. It will undoubtedly transform everything we know, from business to consumer, work, and interpersonal relationships.
The idea of disruption promoted by Artificial Intelligence permeated numerous talks since the event’s opening, in the panel titled Game-Changing, presented by Walmart CEO and NRF President John Furer and Azita Martin, Vice President and General Manager of AI for Retail at Nvidia. Beyond the literal translation ‘Game-Changing,’ the term seeks to express the concept of disruption that technology represents for the world from now on.
Azita Martin lived up to the theme and told us about one of the processes applied by Nvidia in logistics. She said that with software and cyclical testing of AI agents, it’s possible to assess and refine how the system adapts to the unpredictability of the real world. If an incident occurs along the planned route of AMRs (autonomous mobile robots), computer vision updates the occupancy map in real time and sends it to the AI model with a new optimized route.
This example demonstrates AI’s ability to model and adapt to real-time data, as seen in distribution centers, optimizing logistics operations. Used to predict demands, optimize prices, personalize experiences, and much more, given its capacity to analyze large volumes of data, in retail, favoring more agile and assertive decision-making.
In-Store: the new digital
As we’ve already noticed, physical stores are transforming into increasingly digital and interactive spaces. Thus, the fourth highlight presented at NRF 2025 was the adoption of digital practices by in-store:
- Immersive experiences: the use of technologies like virtual and augmented reality to create unique experiences;
- E-commerce integration: offering integrated online and offline shopping options; and
- Real-time data analysis: collecting customer data in-store to personalize the experience and optimize operations.
One of the giants in the luxury beauty market, Sephora, showed that ‘omni’ isn’t just a word but a strategy embedded in the company’s DNA. Artemis Patrick, CEO of the company in North America, emphasized the chain’s long-standing commitment to the unified omnichannel approach. According to Patrick, massive investments in the digitalization of in-store involve, for example, automating payment methods so the in-store shopping experience has the same fluidity as online.
OmniADS: the convergence of channels
Finally, the union of online and offline gave rise to a new concept: ‘OmniADS.’ This approach refers to creating campaigns that extend across all channels, offering a consistent and personalized experience for the consumer.
NRF 2025 made it clear that the future of retail has already begun. The fusion of technology, personalization, and integration isn’t just a trend but the new rule of the game. Companies that put these transformations into practice, investing in technology, data, and customer experience, will be prepared for market challenges and to lead the next era of consumption. This is the opportunity to redefine strategies, reinvent experiences, and reach a new level of relevance.
*Célio Martinez is CEO of Converta Ads
