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If you’ve been in a retail store recently, you’ve probably seen long checkout lines, hard-to-find help — and disgruntled shoppers. Online shopping shows evidence of similar stress, as frustrated consumers abandon digital shopping carts. A telling data point: Customer experience indices have been declining, as seen in drops over four consecutive years with Forrester’s customer experience (CX) index across industries hitting an all-time low in 2025 for North America.
In the retail industry in particular, Forrester’s retail CX index fell to 71.3 in 2025 from 72.4 in the previous year for the U.S. (Forrester’s CX indices measure how well a brand’s customer experience strengthens customer loyalty, on a 0-100 scale: 0-54 is very poor, 55-64 is poor, 65-74 is OK, 75-84 is good, and 85-100 is excellent.) Customers’ dissatisfaction with their shopping experiences has real business implications: According to PwC’s 2025 Customer Experience Survey, 52% of consumers switched to a different brand due to an inferior product/service experience, while 29% did so because of a poor in-store or online experience.
In-store shoppers are frustrated with issues such as too few checkout counters, long lines, out-of-stock items, disorganized merchandise, deficient customer service, and poor store ambience, among others. Online customers’ gripes include overwhelming choices and information, difficulty finding the right option, chatbot assistance failures, technical issues, and complex checkout processes.
For the upcoming holiday shopping season, which traditionally starts the day after the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., retailers must deliver on elements of CX that are now considered table stakes. These include enhancing CX with the seamless integration of offline and online channels, superior merchandising, tailored approaches for different consumer segments, seamless payment processes across channels, and speedy checkouts. Omnichannel effectiveness is no longer optional for retailers, given that it is tightly linked to consumer expectations. For example, shoppers often want to be able to search online, determine a product’s in-store availability, and then try out and perhaps buy the product in-store (webrooming); or they’d like to browse and try out items in-store and then complete the purchase online (showrooming).
Additionally, mobile commerce is dominant and on the rise. EMarketer’s May 2025 forecast predicted that mobile commerce will account for more than 90% of the net increase in holiday e-commerce sales this year. For retailers, this emphasis on shopping via phones means that they must make it easy for shoppers to navigate their apps, search for products, move between items, complete purchases, and engage post-purchase via the mobile interface, as needed.
Keys to the 2025 Holiday Season for Retailers
Retailers must also keep pace with some recent changes in consumer behavior to win a sustainable competitive advantage this holiday season. In addition to the table-stakes elements, retailers should focus on five priorities.
1. Personal Expression
In the current social environment, retailers will benefit from keeping in mind the importance of personal expression to consumers. Generation Z shoppers, whose choices portend the future of retail, are increasingly driven by showcasing their self-image through purchase decisions. We are seeing a broader shift in consumers becoming intentional with their purchases and choosing brands that reflect their personal guiding principles. The degree to which a brand is able to convey a buyer’s principles is now approaching price and quality as a decisive purchasing factor.
This orientation is triggering contradictory actions, with consumers tightening their belts on the one hand but spending on meaningful indulgences on the other, and social-emotional purchases taking priority over utilitarian ones. Retailers such as Starbucks and Gap have engaged in causes supported by consumers, such as RED, a nonprofit program focused on raising funds to help fight HIV and AIDS. Retailers would do well to associate with purpose-driven causes, such as fighting poverty or disease, and engage with consumers on those initiatives.
2. Value Positioning
Retailers should keep affordability in mind, offering quality goods at fair prices during the holiday season. Trader Joe’s has been successful at earning consumer trust by carrying reasonably priced, high-quality products coupled with distinctiveness through creative private labels. Retailers can benefit from being imaginative in their use of private labels to convey affordable exclusivity.
Value positioning also addresses the extended holiday buying window. According to Gartner, early holiday shopping has become standard: Almost a third of the U.S. shoppers it surveyed in August 2025 said that they intended to have their holiday gift purchasing completed by October. This early purchasing activity evens out sales over time rather than creating sales peaks. Retailer websites and apps, coupled with social media in a supporting role, should communicate value to consumers and inspire gift giving.
3. Loyalty Programs
It is time to revamp loyalty and relationship-building programs. Forrester’s “Retailer’s Guide to the 2025 Holiday Season” report states that 75% of U.S. retailers have increased their email marketing spending. However, volume is not enough: Retailers must focus their email content on fostering relationships rather than deluging customers with a constant stream of promotions. While promotions are valued by consumers, retailers should balance frequency and promotion levels — since promotions by themselves do not inspire loyalty.
Retailers should take a holistic approach to relationship-building and personalize benefits to make consumers feel individually recognized. Sephora, a retailer rated high on CX, is revamping its loyalty program in France and the U.S. to emphasize personalization with benefits apparent to consumers from the moment they join. In France, this strategy is to be accompanied by yearlong shopper events, bonus points, exclusive gifts, and beauty workshops. Similarly in the U.S., there is an emphasis on bringing greater in-person engagement via beauty workshops and store personnel interactions that work to build relationships.
4. Enabling Technologies
Technology and, more specifically, AI can be a great enabler of hyperpersonalization for retailers. Artificial intelligence tools can facilitate a retailer reaching customers where, when, and how they want. Customer tracking data allows AI to help design target promotions. The content-generation capacity of generative AI enables retailers to develop highly customized messages efficiently (with human editors ensuring that brand voice is maintained).
AI also opens new possible frontiers for retailers. For instance, retailers should not only rely on traditional tools, such as search engines, to bring in customers but also assess emergent AI-facilitated channels, such as ChatGPT. It is true that as retailers such as Walmart allow shoppers to buy products directly through ChatGPT, the risk/return tally and implications for CX are untested. Nevertheless, it behooves retailers to closely monitor emergent channels and assess potential ROI and the fit with their CX vision.
5. Business Speed
Immediate action is highly valued. What consumers like and want should be deployed rapidly on retailer shelves. Retailers must be more responsive to today’s consumer through real-time forecasts, flexible merchandising plans, and supply chain strategy. Fast fashion retailer Zara has built the capacity to move from design to store shelves in two to three weeks. That kind of speed necessitates careful planning and managed control of the entire production cycle, from design to manufacturing and distribution.
To turn the CX trend line from negative to positive this holiday season, retailers should be laser-focused on customer experience across realms, including enabling personal expression, determining value positioning, fostering loyalty, hyperpersonalizing the customer experience, and engaging in responsive merchandising.
Concurrently, it is important for retailers to deliver helpful human interactions — both offline and online. In a world dominated by technology, pleasant interactions with store checkout or customer service personnel stand out. This is also true online, where customers may experience chatbot failures. Shoppers are growing increasingly frustrated with chatbots that give irrelevant and inaccurate responses to their queries, with no path to a human.
This focus on human-provided customer service, in concert with the other retail experience elements, will help build relational bonds with customers. And for retailers, relationships are the ties that bind in the long term.