The online retail and B2B landscape is set to undergo more change in 2026. The shine and glimmer of AI have not dimmed, but how best to leverage these technologies has undergone scrutiny: justifiably so.
The good news is, there is greater clarity on how best to leverage AI systems to drive growth and scale.
Retailers and B2Bs who continue to evolve and effectively leverage these technologies will be best positioned for success in 2026.
It should come as no surprise that the top 4 eCommerce tips for 2026 involve AI in some way, shape, or form. These tips are…
- Agentic commerce readiness
- The intelligent use of AI to enhance online retail/B2B experiences
- The power of clean and rich product master data
- Optimising the online retail customer journeys via mapping
Each tip is explained below, drawing on recent research and offers practical implementation recommendations.
Tip #1. Start Preparing for Agentic Commerce
Agentic commerce is the next significant shift in online consumer buying, in which LLMs (such as ChatGPT) act on consumers' behalf to find, compare, and purchase products.
In agentic commerce, consumers tell an LLM what he/she want (e.g. “find me the cheapest direct flight that arrives before noon”), and it searches, compares options, and can complete the purchase.
According to a 2025 Deloitte survey, over 45% of Australian consumers are comfortable with ChatGPT making routine purchase decisions, and this number is expected to rise rapidly.
Defining “Agentic Commerce”:
Agentic commerce is both the consumer experience with an AI agent/LLM/ChatGPT as well as the behind-the-scenes work retailers need to do to support those LLM-led journeys.
#1. Call the consumer-facing side “agentic shopping experiences” or “LLM CX.”
#2. Call the retailer work “AI Agent‑readiness” or “AI‑optimized product and transaction infrastructure” as the operational foundation of agentic commerce.
This tip is about being aware of the consumer trend and for retailers preparing to be “agent-ready”.
LLMs like ChatGPT rely on precise product details (including variants), up-to-date pricing, real-time availability, and accurate shipping information. Without well-structured data, your products will be overlooked by these digital agents. This is why product master data integrity is critical (see Tip 3 below).
Quick Tips:
- Review your product catalogues for completeness, with a focus on variant descriptions, images, and specifications. This is the base or minimum requirement.
- Invest in software systems that support rich product attributes, for example a PIM.
- Improve inventory accuracy and technical availability.
- Ensure the product master data can be broadcast in a way that supports the LLM agentic protocols (its rules for reading your product database).
Click here to learn more about getting ready for Agentic commerce.
Tip #2. Balance AI Engagement Tools with eCommerce Best Practices
AI CAN transform online retail experiences; however, relying solely on AI without maintaining eCommerce/digital best practices undermines the integrity of customer journeys and harms conversion rates.
According to a 2025 McKinsey report, retailers who integrated AI engagement tools with proven eCommerce strategies achieved a 23% higher conversion rate than those who used AI in isolation.
Why is this?
Consumer journeys are getting longer. The average journey comprises 28 micro steps (a “micro step” is clicking on links, reading content, viewing pages etc…). When consumers engage with retail sites, no single AI system can match their journey needs.
The fusion of AI tools and best practices produces clean consumer journey context for AI systems which then produce more relevant experiences.
Empowering the Subconscious Mind:
Forbes confirms 90% of online buying occurs when the subconscious mind is active. This is the part of the brain that remains in “auto pilot”.
When done right, AI tools are designed to keep a person’s subconscious mind in control of his/her online buying journey. Hence the size of the opportunity of online buying.
Quick Tips:
- Use AI to enhance, not replace, best practice UX design principles.
- AI systems are most effective when consumers don’t realise they are interacting with AI logic: site search, product recommendations, etc This is why many AI chatbots are ineffective.
- Clean and rich product master data amplifies the effectiveness of AI systems (see more on this below).
Click here to learn more about AI system cohesion and eCommerce best practices.
Tip #3. Product Master Data is a Competitive Advantage
Clean, consistent, and enriched product master data is the foundation to successful online retail experiences.
A recent GS1 Australia study found that retailers who invested in master data management reduced listing errors by 60% and improved time-to-market for new products by 30%.
Consider what depends on clean, consistent, and rich product master data...
- Site search systems
- Agentic experiences (see above)
- Embedded AI systems (see above)
- Your own eCommerce platform to create filtering options and create rich product pages
- Marketing automation systems
- Marketplaces
The list goes on…
There is a direct correlation between the world's top-performing online retailers and the quality of their product master data.
Retailers with a high standard of product master data report...
- Conversion rate increases of 30–35%
- Margins increase of 40%
- 20 to 30% reduction in returns
- Time-to-market for new products 70%+ faster
Quick Tips:
These tips embody the "3C's" of Product Master Data...
- Create product content to fill in the gaps and standardise master data inconsistencies. AI-driven logic can be leveraged to scale this function.
- Capture and hold product data in a single, authoritative system to be the single source of truth (for example, a PIM).
- Circulate and/or broadcast product master data in a way that complies with your relevant business systems (eCom Platform), external third-party systems (Marketplaces), and Agentic protocols (ChatGPT).
Learn more about how and why your product master data is a priority.
Tip #4. Retail Low-Hanging Fruit: Address Key Customer Pain Points
While digital commerce channels continue to outpace brick-and-mortar growth, many digitally centric customer pain points remain unresolved.
Forrester's 2025 research found that 68% of online shoppers abandoned purchases due to…
- Confusing digital experience
- Unclear return policies
- Slow employee support
- Poor delivery/pick up options
The loss of customers in physical retail journeys is far less. And yet, the differences in investment in physical retail improvements versus digital retail improvements are staggering.
Recent research shows that the top-performing retailers have their investment split 50/50, but many retailers argue that their investment remains heavily weighted toward physical retail because it is the primary source of revenue.
This mode of thinking becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Reduced investment in digital retail results in poor experiences that diminish its potential to drive revenue.
Quick Tips:
- Allocate investment in digital retail, but be strategic with how this money is spent. Be iterative and activate small changes initially. This enables careful investment and more effective ROI.
- Understand your eCommerce roadmap that identifies what the future looks like. Only then can you see what the short-term low-hanging fruit looks like.
- As part of the planning process, construct journey maps that define the end-to-end online retail experience and identify friction points across digital, post-sales, and support touchpoints. This forms the basis for creating a plan of action moving forward.
- Engage with proven eCommerce specialists! Don’t work with friends or friends of friends. Find practitioners with proven success with past clients. Actions speak louder than words.
Learn more about the Journey Mapping process.
Conclusion: Take Action for a Profitable 2026
2026 will reward retailers and B2B’s who act now to embrace agentic commerce, balance AI with proven best practices, invest in product master data, and solve persistent customer pain points in digital engagement.
Take heed of the above to be well-positioned for growth and resilience in the new era of eCommerce. Start today and set your business up for a fantastic year ahead.
Ready to grow? Let’s Go!
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