Retail enterprises are reshaping customer engagement and operations by embedding AI, agentic commerce, and intelligent decision-making across the retail value chain. They are unifying commerce and store operations to connect inventory, fulfillment, merchandising, and customer journeys, while using AI-driven planning and real-time visibility to strengthen supply chain resilience and optimize cost-to-serve. As value-conscious behavior intensifies, retailers are applying advanced analytics to assortment, pricing, private-label development, and supplier collaboration to protect margins and accelerate product innovation. At the same time, retailers are expanding retail media and first-party data monetization to create new revenue streams, while luxury, circular commerce, clienteling, authentication, resale, and immersive experiences are emerging as new avenues for differentiated customer engagement.
Both demand- and supply-side trends are covered in Avasant’s Retail Digital Services 2026 Market Insights™ and Retail Digital Services 2026 RadarView™, respectively. These reports present a comprehensive study of digital service providers in the retail industry, including top trends, analysis, and recommendations. The reports also closely examine the leaders, innovators, disruptors, and challengers in this market.
We evaluated 61 service providers across two dimensions: practice maturity and future-proofing. Of the 61 providers, we recognized 29 that brought the most value to the market during the past 12 months.
The reports recognize service providers across five categories:
Figure 1 below from the full report illustrates these categories:
“Retailers are embedding agentic AI across commerce, stores, and supply chains to deliver more personalized experiences while improving operational agility,” said Harvey Gluckman, partner at Avasant. “By unifying commerce, optimizing operations, and expanding retail media, they are driving growth, resilience, and customer engagement.”
The reports provide several findings, including the following:
“Service providers are enabling retailers with agentic AI, unified commerce platforms, intelligent store solutions, and AI-driven supply chain capabilities,” said Norkit Lepcha, lead analyst at Avasant. “They are also expanding retail media, margin optimization, and experience-led commerce to drive growth and agility.”
The RadarView also features detailed profiles of 29 service providers, along with their solutions, offerings, and experience in assisting retail enterprises in their digital transformation journeys.
This Research Byte is a brief overview of Avasant’s Retail Digital Services 2026 Market Insights™ and Retail Digital Services 2026 RadarView™ (click for pricing).
Avasant’s research and other publications are based on information from the best available sources and Avasant’s independent assessment and analysis at the time of publication. Avasant takes no responsibility and assumes no liability for any error/omission or the accuracy of information contained in its research publications. Avasant does not endorse any provider, product or service described in its RadarView™ publications or any other research publications that it makes available to its users, and does not advise users to select only those providers recognized in these publications. Avasant disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. None of the graphics, descriptions, research, excerpts, samples or any other content provided in the report(s) or any of its research publications may be reprinted, reproduced, redistributed or used for any external commercial purpose without prior permission from Avasant, LLC. All rights are reserved by Avasant, LLC.
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