新零售现实：人工智能时代2026年零售配送趋势

SECTION 12026 Retail Trends: The evolution of retail and customer demand Zero-click shopping: AI agents and agentic paymentsRetail media networks and the expansion into post-purchasePhygital and omnichannel: E-commerce and in-store blur SECTION 2Capabilities: The truth layer Automation that earns trustService that scales without losing the human moment SECTION 3Constraints: What’s shaping the playing field Regulation, AI guardrails, consumer rightsGeopolitics, customs friction, route volatility SECTION 4Blueprint: Turning insights into action Readiness checklistCapability map About nShift INTRO Every year brings a fresh set of retail technology trends. 2026 is different for one simple reason: the mostimportant force showing up everywhere is acustomer who has stopped being patient. What’s changing isn’t just the speed of retail; it’s the shape of customer demand. Customers want control, visibility,and fewer compromises at every step of the journey. Delivery choices that fit real life. Updates that feel proactive,not apologetic. A returns journey that doesn’t punish them for buying online. When those expectations aren’t met, Behind that experience sits a carrier landscape that is getting more dynamic, with more out-of-home networks,more handovers, and more delivery choices that need to work consistently across partners. At nShift, we operate in the moments where that impact is created:between checkout and doorstep, betweenservice promise and operational reality, between retailer ambition and the limits of today’s logistics landscape. It’s a This report starts with the new retail reality, the shifts in behavior and demand that are redefining what “good”looks like. Then it goes deeper into what matters next: the capabilities required to deliver at scale, the constraints 2026 RETAILTRENDS: The evolution of retail andcustomer demand In 2026, the definition of convenience isshifting from “easy to browse” to “delegatedand automated”. For two decades, onlineretail relied on customers actively searching, ECTION ONE The following market shifts describe howcustomer demand is changing and why Zero-click shopping:AI agents and Shopping is starting to be delegated. And when a machine is the first reader, theoffer has to be comparable. Total cost, delivery promise, and returns terms need to Where we are now AI shopping agents are moving fromnovelty to infrastructure. The shift is alreadyvisible in discovery behavior. In Capgemini’s 2025 consumer research1, 58% ofconsumers said they have replaced traditional search engines with generative AI Trust remains a constraint on full automation. Forrester’s 2025 UK research2pointsto a gap between expectation and readiness. 35% of UK online adults expectbrands to market directly to AI agents in the future, while 24% currently trust AI An early adopter segment is already active. Retailer-commissioned researchindicates that 28% of UK adults are comfortable allowing an AI assistant to auto-buy Where we’re heading McKinsey’s 2024 view of agentic commerce3describes three emerging paths: •In one, an agent navigates to a brand website in place of a shopper.•In another, agents transact directly with other agents.•In a third, agents act through brokerage models that connect agents and brand sites. The common outcome is thatpurchasing becomes more automated, whilethe information required to For retailers, this shift tends to show up in three interconnected ways: Customer experiences are reimagined around “delegated” interactions. Marketing becomes less about persuading a human and more about beingselected by a machine. Payments and fraud controls evolve to support non-human purchasersacting on behalf of customers. The payments layer is already moving. PayPal has been building agenticcommerce services designed to make inventory and fulfilment easier for AIagents to interpret and act on4. Major payment networks are also defining Some forecasts position this as a material channel shift over time. PayPal’sstated “north star” is that up to 25% of ecommerce spend could be agent-driven by 20308. Whether or not that exact figure holds, the direction is clear: Why it matters Up to 25% of ecommerce spendcould be agent-driven by 2030. The competitive battleground shifts towardsoperational legibility. If yoursystems cannot reliably express what an agent needs to decide, includingdelivery options, delivery dates, and returns terms, you become easier to Retail media networksand the expansion into Where we are now Retail media has graduated from “extra revenue” toa serious line item in Europeanadvertising budgets. It is also growing faster than the wider ad market. IAB Europe’soutlook puts the market at roughly €31bn by 20289. The UK offers a clear signal of the Retail media has moved from a side project to a core business model. Retailers aremonetizing two assets that brands compete for: first-party purchase data and the The next growth wave pushes beyond search a