In our trend prediction article for 2025, we focused heavily on technological shifts, new market opportunities, and sustainability. This year, we’re taking a look at how online shopping experiences will need to evolve in big ways in order to meet shifting consumer needs and demands. 

If 2025 was the year of “try every new shiny tool,” 2026 is the year of scaling back and focusing on what works, leaving what doesn’t behind. The winners will be the brands that make buying effortless, keep customers coming back, and feel human even while AI quietly does the heavy lifting under the hood.

We predict that ecommerce trends in 2026 will be largely driven by speed, personalization, and retention. For small and mid-sized ecommerce brands, staying ahead of these trends will be key to thriving in the coming year. 

In this guide, we’ll explore the top ecommerce trends to watch in 2026: from the rise of new sales channels to the renewed focus on building customer trust. Each trend is centred around creating better shopping experiences and sustainable growth.

Marketplace Dominance and Social Commerce Boom

In Asia, shopping via online marketplaces and social platforms is a way of life. Asian markets currently dominate global ecommerce, with China alone accounting for nearly half of worldwide online retail sales. Often, Asian shopping trends make their way over to Western ecommerce, and keeping an eye on what’s happening on that side of the world usually gives us a good glimpse of where our ecommerce industry is headed. 

Innovations like in-app livestream shopping — already generating over $800 billion in sales in China — and robust marketplace loyalty programs keep customers engaged and spending. A combination of superior retention tactics and trust in established marketplaces has made platforms like Alibaba, JD Global, and Shopee the default online shopping destinations in the East. 

Now, Western brands are following suit: social commerce (buying directly through social media) is growing at double-digit rates. In the U.S., social commerce sales rose 26% in 2024 to over $71 billion, and are on track to surpass $100 billion by 2026. 

TikTok Shop is the one to watch in this space right now: the vertical video app’s shopping features have quickly gained traction, reportedly hitting $1 billion in monthly U.S. sales in late 2024. Its popularity with Gen Z, flash sales, and in-app checkout experiences is seriously shifting consumer habits. 

Because of this, we expect more brands to establish a presence on marketplaces and social platforms in 2026 — whether that means selling on Amazon, Walmart, and Etsy or leveraging TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook Shops. Shoppers increasingly gravitate to these one-stop ecosystems for convenience and reassurance against fraud. 

In Canada as well, platforms like Facebook Marketplace, Instagram Shopping, and TikTok Shop are driving social commerce growth for brands, helping them tap into new audiences. Brands that recognize this early and build a presence on these platforms will be the ones who come out on top by the end of 2026. 

New Channels: Conversational and Live Commerce

Just as marketplaces and social media platforms are shifting where today’s consumers purchase products, the proliferation of conversational commerce (AI-driven chat shopping) and live commerce (livestream shopping events) is changing how customers interact with brands.

Both of these channels tap into the instant gratification and interactive experiences that customers expect as we head into 2026. This is great for brands looking to improve their customer experiences, as it opens new ways to engage with and convert shoppers. 

Conversational commerce has gotten a huge boost thanks to advances in AI. Recently, OpenAI’s ChatGPT introduced two new AI-based shopping capabilities: 

• The Agentic Commerce Protocol: The agentic AI technology that enables AI agents to make purchases on merchant sites via ChatGPT’s interface. Businesses can use this protocol to ensure that their non-Etsy or Shopify-based stores are surfacable and shoppable within ChatGPT.

• Instant Checkout: Powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol and Stripe, U.S. ChatGPT users can now make purchases directly in the LLM chat from Etsy sellers and stores powered by Shopify without the merchant needing to manually link ChatGPT to their store via the Agentic Commerce Protocol. 

In last year's trend round-up, we discussed potential declines in live commerce, but we may have been wrong: numbers show that livestream commerce sales could account for over 5% of all U.S. ecommerce by 2026. 

The appeal is an entertaining, interactive shopping experience where customers can ask questions and get that “in-person,” QVC demo-esque feel from the comfort of home. For brands, it’s an opportunity to build closer connections and excitement around products. 

Early adopters are learning that a successful live commerce strategy can boost sales and brand loyalty, especially among younger shoppers. If you have charismatic presenters or passionate fans, experimenting with live selling (even on a small scale via Instagram Live or TikTok) could pay off.

Agentic AI Running the Show Under the Hood

Every trend roundup since ChatGPT’s public launch in 2022 has focused on AI and how it will optimize workflows — speeding up everything from content creation to analytics and customer service. For 2026, however, we firmly believe it will be the year agentic AI takes over, running everything from sales and customer service to marketing and beyond. 

Agentic AI (AI agent) capabilities differ from your typical LLM-based chatbots and tools in the sense that they are capable of working autonomously while also constantly learning and improving based on the outcomes of their actions. 

With agentic AI, not only could you create an agent that sets up your paid ads, but it can also generate fresh copy, assets, and even go live with updated campaigns — all without any input from you, based on the information it learned since the last campaign (and even make changes to current campaigns based on performance and customer reactions!). 

AI is everywhere, but the public opinion on its use is mixed. People want to read copy written by real humans, and using completely AI-generated images has begun to turn customers off to brands that overuse the tool, making them appear inauthentic. That’s why we believe we’ll start to see AI relegated largely to “under-the-hood” applications. 

An LLM/AI isn’t the most creative writer, but it’s great for grammar checks, summaries, and outlines. Similarly, agentic AI can run across your store’s backend processes, creating and optimizing product listings, surfacing better product recommendations for customers browsing your site, and analyzing your site’s analytics to predict which products might be popular next month, ensuring you have adequate stock. 

B2B Ecommerce Gets a B2C Makeover

In 2026, business-to-business ecommerce is expected to undergo a transformation influenced mainly by the expectations of a new generation of buyers. Millennials (and the rising Gen Z cohort) now make up around 71% of B2B purchase decision-makers, and they’re bringing their digital-native habits with them. 

Having grown up with seamless B2C shopping apps and on-demand services, these buyers won’t tolerate clunky procurement portals or old-school sales processes for their business purchases. The result? The line between B2B and B2C experiences is blurring fast. In 2026, we expect to see continued growth in self-service B2B, a huge shift away from the traditional model of sales reps, lengthy quote requests (RFQs), and manual order handling.

We’re already seeing B2B ecommerce platforms modernize to meet these expectations. Features like personalized catalogues and pricing for each account, instant reordering, live chat support, and even B2B marketplaces are gaining traction. We’re also seeing more B2C-focused platforms like Shopify build easy, fresh B2B solutions for online stores using their platform. 

Frictionless Checkout to Cut Cart Abandonment

Customer acquisition costs (CAC) have never been higher, with an all-industries average of $78 in 2025, a 40% increase from just two years ago. After working so hard and spending this much just to get someone to add something to their cart, ensuring they actually click the “checkout” button is extremely important. Yet, cart abandonment rates hover around 70%. On mobile, it’s even worse: over 85% of mobile users abandon their carts. 

In 2026, successful ecommerce brands will need to treat their checkouts as a critical product feature in itself, optimizing every step to reduce friction. One-click/page checkout and digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Shop Pay, etc.) have shifted from nice-to-have conveniences to necessary features. If your store is still forcing users through five-page forms or surprise fees, simplifying needs to be on your 2026 to-do list. 

Why do customers bail during checkout? A lot of the time, it’s because the process frustrates them or they encounter unwelcome surprises. Extra costs like shipping and taxes are the number one reason (55% of shoppers cite this), followed by checkout being too long or complex (26%), and not seeing the total order cost upfront (21%). These are all fixable issues. 

For example, showing all fees upfront, offering free shipping thresholds, and enabling express checkout options can seriously improve completion rates. A clean, mobile-optimized flow is especially important, given that mobile commerce continues to grow year over year.

Personalization 2.0 – Beyond Product Recommendations

Basic personalization, like “recommended products” blocks on your site or addressing customers by name in emails, is no longer enough. The next stage is hyper-personalized shopping experiences that adapt to each user’s context in real time. Advances in AI and machine learning mean that by the end of 2026, this agentic AI-led deeper personalization will be the norm for ecommerce sites of all sizes. 

We’re talking about strategies like dynamic pricing and offers based on browsing behaviour, custom checkout flows for new vs. returning customers, and even landing pages that change messaging depending on the traffic source.

In terms of pricing, AI-driven systems enable on-the-fly adjustments to prices and promotions for different segments. These tools can factor in real-time data like competitor prices or a customer’s loyalty status to optimize the deal for both conversion likelihood and profit margin. For example, a first-time visitor might see an introductory discount, while a repeat customer with high lifetime value might see a bundle deal or a free upgrade to encourage higher spend.

The Need for Speed (and Site Performance)

The future of ecommerce in 2026 is going to be fast. If you think consumers are impatient now, we expect the overall tolerance for slow-loading ecommerce sites to be closer to zero next year. 

When bounce rates increase by 32% as page load times increase from 1 to 3 seconds, and when a 100-millisecond delay in website load time can hurt conversion rates by 7%, it’s time to take stock of your site’s performance and put some time and resources into optimizing site speed and performance. The brands that win will be the ones that make browsing and buying feel instantaneous. Speed is becoming a competitive differentiator: the faster your site, the higher your conversion rate. 

What does this mean for your ecommerce store? Prioritize performance optimization as much as you do design or merchandising. Techniques like compressing and lazy-loading images, using fast hosting/CDNs, minimizing third-party scripts, and optimizing code can shave seconds off load times. 

Mobile performance is especially important these days, given that most traffic is now mobile. Leverage a performance monitoring tool like Noibu that can monitor your website and notify you of any hidden bugs that can affect speed, UX, and performance. 

Retention Over Acquisition: The Post-Purchase Push

As we brought up earlier, customer acquisition has never been more difficult or expensive. The best way to deal with this is to focus on retaining existing customers rather than trying to constantly gain new ones. 

The real profit often comes on the second or third order, not the first. Brands are realizing that if buyers never make a repeat purchase, all those marketing dollars spent to win them the first time are essentially wasted. It’s no surprise we’re seeing renewed interest in loyalty programs, store credit rewards, and subscription models to maximize customer lifetime value (CLV). 

Having a good marketing strategy is great, but if your customer experience and customer support are less than stellar, you need to evaluate those paths and make improvements. Tools like Gorgias, for example, can help ensure you have 24/7 high-quality support with AI-powered chat, automations, and a self-serve customer knowledge base, while Klaviyo can be the backbone of a stellar post-purchase/marketing email flow. 

Additionally, loyalty programs are on the rise. Points, rewards, and VIP tiers give customers an incentive to stick around (and spend more to unlock perks). Community-building and engagement via social media groups or events can also strengthen customer relationships. 

The goal is to make your customers feel valued beyond the transaction. In turn, they can help you build your customer base through referrals and word of mouth. 

A Culture of Continuous Testing and Optimization

As routine tasks become automated and/or run by AI agents, teams have more bandwidth to run experiments and fine-tune messaging for each audience and channel. There’s no reason brands shouldn’t be working on building a culture that rewards continuous optimization and testing. 

Try new homepage and product page layouts, build out A/B tests for everything from email subject lines to product descriptions and images. Practically speaking, everything is fair game for testing: website headlines, checkout flow, pricing displays, ad creatives, email send times, etc. Even small optimizations, when compounded across an entire customer journey, can yield massive uplift in conversions and revenue. 

A/B testing isn’t new, but it’s becoming easier and more ingrained thanks to better tools and automation. By methodically testing one change at a time, brands can design a user experience optimized for engagement, conversion, and loyalty. For example, you might discover that a different CTA button colour boosts add-to-cart rate, or that a certain email subject line gets a 10% higher open rate. Individually, these are minor gains, but they add up.

By 2026, continuously optimizing the conversion funnel is arguably a bigger competitive advantage than simply pouring more traffic into the top of that same funnel.

Trust and Authenticity as Key Differentiators

Since we brought up how agentic AI running things in the background would be one of 2026’s ecommerce trends, we should break down one of the counter trends in ecommerce for next year: the brands that win may be the ones that feel the most human. 

Consumers are increasingly craving authenticity and trust in their shopping and browsing experiences, especially as they become more aware of (and wary of) AI-driven interactions. By 2026, simply having the best, freshest technology won’t guarantee success if your customer experience feels cold or robotic. 

This is why we recommend tools like Gorgias: they enable merchants to offload easy, repetitive queries so customers can get the human touch they need, when they need it. 

Surveys indicate that about 86% of consumers prefer dealing with a human for complex questions or purchase decisions, and a vast majority can tell when responses are AI-generated. When customers suspect they’re just chatting with a bot or getting canned automated replies, it can erode the trust you spent so much time and money building.

Use AI for smart pricing, inventory forecasting, personalization, etc., but let it be the engine, not the face of your brand. Ensure your customer service has a human option readily available and highlight real stories, whether through genuine customer reviews, founder’s messages, or behind-the-scenes peeks that build a relatable brand image to build trust with your customer base. 

Conclusion

The one thing all these trends have in common is customer experience. Whether it’s faster sites, simpler checkouts, personalized journeys, or proactive service, the brands that put the customer’s needs and expectations front and center are most likely to succeed next year. 

2026 will reward the agile and customer-centric: those who can adopt new channels like social, chat, and live commerce; who optimize and iterate constantly; who focus on lifetime value over one-off transactions; and who leverage technology smartly without losing the human element. It’s a year where conversion rate optimization and customer retention become as important as acquisition and traffic, because squeezing more value from what you have can often outperform growth through marketing efforts and ad spend alone.

At Blue Badger, we have the tools and know-how to help you make 2026 your best year yet. Our skills include running performance audits, testing and implementing optimizations, custom theme and app design, strategic planning, marketing, conversion rate optimization, ERP integration, PIM implementation, building custom apps, and more. Contact us today to learn more about prepping your ecommerce store for the next year.