Introduction

Coresight Research is a research partner of Shoptalk Fall 2026, which took place September 29–October 1 at the Music City Center in Nashville, Tennessee. In this report, we present highlights from the third and final day of the conference.

Shoptalk Fall 2026, Day 3: Coresight Research Insights

1. Loyalty Through Convenience, Service and Repeated Usefulness

The loyalty panel framed loyalty less as a points program and more as an operating discipline built around convenience, service, trust and repeated usefulness. Deepak Maini, SVP & GM, Walmart+, Walmart, said Walmart+ is designed to become part of customers’ everyday routines by combining frequent-use benefits across delivery, fuel, streaming, pharmacy, auto care and other services.

Walmart+ has expanded from three benefits at launch to more than a dozen. Maini said new benefits are assessed according to whether they solve a real everyday problem, improve the experience, have natural frequency and create value members will repeatedly use. The program also tests messaging, value propositions, onboarding and friction points, with particular focus on helping members realize value quickly. The notes cite Walmart+ members as shopping approximately three times as frequently, spending four times as much and visiting ecommerce seven times as often as non-members.

Abhishek Nandi, VP, Marketing Technology, Lowe’s, distinguished between DIY and Pro customers. The underlying loyalty foundation can be shared, but benefits, flexibility, service models and personalization need to reflect different customer missions. Brett Battes, President, The UPS Store, emphasized frontline enablement, arguing that training, support, systems and tools should reduce friction for franchisees and associates so they can deliver a stronger customer experience.

The Shoptalk closing session (covered in more detail below) returned to loyalty through the lens of emotional connection and community. Joe Laszlo, Head of Insights, US, Shoptalk, argued that emotional loyalty is increasingly important as agents influence shopping decisions. Beachwaver was cited as an example of community engagement: the brand calls highly engaged customers its “VIP OGs,” some of whom were said to purchase 20–100 times a year, and has co-created products with consumers.

2. Demand Sensing and Faster Decision-Making

Spin Master and Scotts Miracle-Gro both described demand sensing as a combination of multiple data sources rather than reliance on a single signal.

Steven Radewych, SVP, Supply Chain Operations, Spin Master, said the company combines store-level point-of-sale and inventory data with social media, entertainment trends and macroeconomic signals. The importance of those signals varies by brand. Rubik’s Cube can experience sharp sales increases following cultural exposure, such as placement in a movie or music video, while other brands are more closely tied to price point and consumers’ spending capacity.

AI has expanded Spin Master’s ability to process these signals. Radewych said work that previously took around a month can now be completed in a couple of days, allowing people to spend more time on interpretation and action. He also stressed that faster insight needs to be matched by sourcing, distribution and localized production. For the latest Paw Patrol movie, Spin Master staggered international releases and used early sales patterns to adjust product plans in markets launching later.

David Huskisson, SVP, Supply Chain & Transformation, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, said the business uses weather, granular retail sales, related purchases and digital engagement to anticipate demand. Strong wheelbarrow sales, for example, can correlate with lawn activity. Following a broader inventory-strategy revamp, cross-functional, data-driven planning helped reduce average carrying inventory by 52%.

Scotts is also using AI in a regional initiative that combines current raw-material prices with allowable product tolerances for soil and mulch to optimize formulas while maintaining quality and improving margin. Huskisson emphasized small, pragmatic bets, while also highlighting organizational resistance, legacy systems and fragmented data as obstacles to change.

Both companies stressed that demand sensing must be matched by the ability to respond. Radewych said manufacturers need sourcing and distribution capabilities that can react when demand rises, while Huskisson noted that in lawn and garden, product that is not at the retailer during the key seasonal window can become a lost sale.

3. David’s Bridal and Equinox Sell Past the Core Product

From the dress to the wedding plan

For 75 years David’s Bridal sold the dress, which is one of 300 steps in a wedding, Kelly Cook, CEO at David’s Bridal, said. The company has since packed four years of innovation into 18 months to build its business model around the whole planning process, and a bride buys 15 or more outfits in the 18 months before her wedding.

Pearl, the company’s planning tool, starts from the bride’s stress rather than from a product. Elina Vilk, President and Chief Business Officer at David’s Bridal, said a newly engaged 26-year-old faces more than 300 tasks over 18 months to plan a $50K event that will be photographed and judged. Pearl builds a vision board, shows venues and sets out the plan week by week. It also connects the bride with florists, with Shutterfly and with save-the-date cards, and the company has built advertising tools for the next stage, when the couple moves in together and the bride decides on everything from toothpaste to furniture. Vilk said AI is a technical solution, not the way the company solves the problem, and urged the audience to go deep into the customer’s problem and solve it.

The store fleet is changing with the model. David’s Bridal used to build 15K-square-foot stores and is moving to an asset-light, more profitable estate, Cook said. It will size down stores, opened 40 outlets in three weeks after finding the US middle market collapsing and is expanding a shop-in-shop it tested with Liverpool in Mexico. Its competition has changed too: the company owns a joint venture that designs and makes gowns in 40 factories around the world and sells wholesale to the boutiques that were once its rivals. Cook summed up the confidence the changes take: “Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a row boat and taking tartar sauce with you.”

From the gym to the hotel

Equinox, which has 118 clubs and opens its 119th in Playa Vista next week, calls itself a high-performance luxury lifestyle company built on movement, nutrition, recovery and community. Marc Mastronardi, President at Equinox, said the company wants to be part of members’ daily lives, from diagnosis to delivery, inside the club, the community and the hotel. It opened its first hotel, with a sleep lab, in Hudson Yards in 2019. It has since launched Optimized, a $40K-a-year program for managing health, and Arc, a women’s health program run by trained coaches with an advisory board of doctors.

The data side is still young. Equinox records every machine and class, and members can connect a ring or a watch so the app can recommend a program for the day based on sleep and health cycle, a feature Mastronardi put in its early stages. The core offer remains people: Equinox sells the skill of its trainers and hires the top 1% of group fitness instructors.

• David’s Bridal and Equinox are examples of retailers and brands turning a single purchase into a longer relationship, from wedding planning to setting up a home at David’s Bridal and from workouts to sleep and health data at Equinox.

4. Crocs and Kenneth Cole Market Through Entertainment, and the Store

Shows in place of ads

David’s Bridal has carried the same customer focus into marketing. The company said brides watch eight to 10 hours of video a week, and it bought Love Stories TV and built a TV show on the idea that weddings no longer have rules. According to David’s Bridal, 90% of brides now reach its ecosystem and the aim is to keep them there.

Kenneth Cole Productions took its name from a piece of staging. With no money for space at a shoe show, Kenneth Cole got a city permit, of the kind issued for utilities or film shoots, to park a trailer on 5th Avenue. He renamed the company and sold footwear to Saks and Bloomingdale’s. “Content for us is everything,” said Jed Berger, CEO at Kenneth Cole Productions. Every campaign starts with the business objective. An in-house production team and an organization cut from three teams with separate reporting lines to fewer layers let the company move fast, as when Bravo filmed KJ Dillard over four days for a February season.

Micro-dramas, a mascot and stores

Moving all of its marketing to digital in 2016 let Crocs run global campaigns at scale and laid the base for its growth since 2018, said Carly Gomez, Chief Marketing Officer at Crocs. Its micro-dramas are episodes of 60 to 90 seconds that end on a cliffhanger: one launched on Valentine’s Day this year, and the third season comes out in December. Anne Mehlman, Brand President at Crocs, said the episodes run in the TikTok feed alongside creators, influencers and the brand’s TikTok Shop live streams. For David’s Bridal, TikTok Shop does not work, although a bride can order its wedding dresses on DoorDash, with Las Vegas the top city.

Crocs has also turned its mascot into intellectual property. Niles the Crocodile sits on the rivet on the side of the clog, has more than 35K followers and is working on the 2027 campaign. Mehlman said brands need to mean something, and Niles builds an emotional connection beyond the product. Crocs treats each collaboration as a way to bring in new customers and picks partners that add something and share its values, including LEGO this year, KFC and Post Malone. Gomez said collaborations succeed when they feel authentic to a brand that does not take itself too seriously.

Personalization ties the marketing to the store. Crocs has about 3,000 monobrand stores with Jibbitz bars, where people spend 45 minutes, and a new store format in China built around personalization. According to Crocs, customers who connect with the brand in a physical store have a higher lifetime value.

• We believe entertainment is becoming part of how these brands find customers, but the sales channel differs, as Crocs links its shows to TikTok Shop and David’s Bridal runs its own TV channel. The value of the physical store was discussed in other day three sessions (see below), and it is something we have long pointed to: We argue that, along with above-the-line advertising, stores are where brands are traditionally built; they serve an essential brand-marketing purpose, whether they are monobrand or multibrand stores. The store is a place to tell a brand’s story and immerse new and existing customers in its universe. See our report BEST at Retail: Evolving Physical Stores for the Attention Economy for deeper discussion and quantification.

5. Stores as Part of Connected Commerce

Anthropologie views physical stores as a localized, experiential component of connected commerce rather than a channel competing with ecommerce. Candan Erenguc, Chief Operating Officer, Anthropologie, and Mindy Massey, Global Executive Director, Retail, said the company uses digital demand, population trends and community alignment to guide store expansion, then differentiates formats and assortments according to the customer in each location.

Nashville illustrates this market-level approach. Green Hills serves a local shopper base; the smaller Gulch store is tailored toward tourists; Franklin is roughly four times the size of the Gulch store and includes weddings, shoes, Terrain and live plants; and a forthcoming 12 South location is planned with a stronger fashion and premium-denim focus. Anthropologie evaluates all stores in a market together with direct-to-consumer demand, and the executives said deeper physical presence has tended to raise total market performance rather than create meaningful cannibalization.

Convenience and experience are both important. Massey said customers treat time as “a currency,” meaning a closer store can increase shopping frequency. Anthropologie also continues to emphasize visual merchandising, sensory cues, complimentary styling and high-touch service. AI is being used across design, planning, allocation, service tools and other workflows, with the stated goal of removing blockers and helping teams respond faster while protecting the creative and human parts of the customer experience.

Mindy Massey, Global ED, Retail, Anthropologie; Candan Erenguc, Chief Operating Officer, Anthropologie; Julia Waldow, Reporter, Modern Retail (moderator)
Source: Shoptalk Fall

 

6. Claire’s and The Children’s Place Check AI Against the Store

The data informs, the merchant decides

Stores were also the test at the noon merchandising session, which ended by calling AI an accelerant, not an answer. For the chief merchants of Claire’s and The Children’s Place, data and AI should cut noise and free up merchants’ time, while the merchant stays accountable for decisions grounded in what the customer sees in the store.

Jillian Cueff, Chief Merchandising Officer at Claire’s, said AI can take over “the 80% of the job that we didn’t get into this to do,” leaving merchants time to be creative and visit stores, while the merchant stays responsible for the assortment and whether it sells. Cueff’s rule for the team: “It’s okay to use it, it’s not okay to let it use you.” At Claire’s the stores are the data, so understanding the customer means watching Gen Alpha shoppers handle and discover products in the store.

The Children’s Place said the volume of data can cause “analysis paralysis,” with data often pointing to lower prices, which can cost margin and sometimes customers, or to more SKUs. Its sales split about 50/50 between e-commerce and stores, so stores still matter. Graphic T-shirts are a large business whose average unit retail has fallen, and the company’s AI agents advised buying more SKUs. The company is now carrying fewer graphic T-shirt styles, for more pricing power and margin dollars while it stays competitive.

Pricing judged from the shopper’s side

The Children’s Place changes prices every week and is testing dynamic pricing by channel from a grid that is automated and then refined. Kiera Ganann, Chief Merchandising Officer at The Children’s Place, said that when she shops, the grid can produce confusing prices and too many coupon emails, so the company is now looking at execution as well as analysis.

Claire’s has run promotions such as “buy three, get three” for years and wants to show the real value of its merchandise and cut back everyday promotion over time, helped by upgraded loyalty programs. Cueff said piercing is the draw and price is not the main reason people choose where to be pierced, with merchandise “in service of that piercing experience.” Falling birth rates mean Claire’s has to get more from each visit, she added.

Comfort with chaos still matters to both merchants, and the amount of data has made it matter more. Cueff’s first test in hiring is curiosity, a trait she said no one can teach.

David’s Bridal puts curiosity first too: Cook said the company looks for “maniacal curiosity about the world” in every hire, along with passion for the business and selflessness.

• We believe the way to manage AI and human interactions in merchandising is to let tools process volume and keep human judgment at the point of customer experience. Retailers can set guardrails stating that AI recommendations (such as SKU counts) are inputs and that a named merchant owns the final decision. They should review dynamic pricing and promotion for consistency of customer experience, not only margin.

7. Closing Panel Wraps Up Shoptalk Fall Learnings

Agentic Commerce and Changes in Product Discovery

Agentic commerce was a major theme in the Shoptalk closing discussion. Laszlo described three forms: agents that help consumers find products, agents that complete transactions, and retailers’ or brands’ own agents. He said agentic commerce remains “extremely small” but is expected to grow, and argued that retailers need the groundwork in place on the backend of their ecommerce businesses.

The panel also discussed changes in the path to purchase. AI-assisted discovery can take shoppers directly to product detail pages rather than through the homepage, and the notes indicate that these visitors can arrive ready to buy and convert at a higher rate. Speakers said retailers should adapt their websites to this traffic while still maintaining opportunities for discovery and emotional connection.

Product data and infrastructure were also emphasized. Deborah Weinswig, CEO and Founder, Coresight Research, cited Fashionphile’s focus on having done the necessary “plumbing” on its data for the future. The panel also noted that ROI remains difficult to measure, with different companies reporting very different outcomes from AEO and GEO efforts.

Human perspectives remain part of the journey. The closing discussion cited TikTok research indicating that more than half of users want AI answers together with real results from real people. Reddit was also cited as saying that more than half of Reddit users go to the platform to do a final check before they buy.

Weinswig cited comments from Reddit that platforms and tools will keep changing, but the human perspective becomes more valuable—which echoes commentary elsewhere (discussed above) on the continued value of human input as AI becomes more prevalent.

Shoptalk Fall Key Takeaways, with Leslie Ann Hall of Iced Media, Weinswig, Laszlo and Chris Walton of Omni Talk (moderator)
Source: Shoptalk Fall

 

Brand, Community and Live Shopping

The Shoptalk closing panel highlighted renewed attention to brand marketing and cultural relevance. Weinswig said marketing leaders need to explain spending more clearly, including what they are spending on, why and how it shows up on the top line. The panel also discussed brands participating in cultural trends and partnerships while retaining their own identity.

Community was repeatedly highlighted through specific examples. Beachwaver has mobilized loyal customers and co-created products with consumers; StockX is using loyal collectors in support of livestreaming; Michaels was cited for improving the store experience and hosting parties; and Ulta was cited for classes.

Live shopping was discussed as an opportunity to educate shoppers, answer questions and strengthen community, but the panel also stressed that the US market is much smaller than parts of Asia.

The panel said livestreaming requires “a particular skillset” and that brands need to “put in the time” to be successful. It also highlighted structural differences between vertical and multi-brand businesses: vertical brands were said to have greater opportunity around bundling and private label, while multi-brand retailers may need to secure permission from individual brands.

Across the closing discussion, the path to purchase was described as increasingly fragmented across AI-assisted discovery, social platforms, communities and other channels. Speakers emphasized both brand distinctiveness and the ability to participate in these newer forms of discovery.

• Look out for a new deep dive on video commerce, including livestream e-commerce, publishing soon on coresight.com.

Convenience and Operational Execution

Convenience was discussed across stores, loyalty and supply chain. Walmart+ connects stores, e-commerce, curbside, same-day delivery, faster delivery options and, for eligible customers, in-home delivery. Its broader ecosystem also includes services such as pharmacy, fuel, photo, money transfer and auto care.

At Anthropologie, convenience includes store proximity. Massey said adding a closer or more appropriately located store can increase visit frequency, even when customers already shop the brand digitally or through another store.

The supply-chain discussion showed the operational side of the same issue. Spin Master emphasized the need to match demand sensing with responsive sourcing and distribution, while Scotts highlighted the importance of having seasonal product positioned at retailers at the right time. Across the sessions, technology was consistently discussed as an enabler of faster response and lower friction rather than as an end in itself.

• Look out for our Shoptalk Fall Wrap-Up report, pulling together all our insights from the conference, publishing soon on coresight.com.