Shoptalk Fall is one of retail's key planning moments. Held September 29 to October 1 at Music City Center in Nashville, the event brought together retailers, consumer brands, and technology leaders in the window when 2027 strategies are being finalized.
This year's theme, "Retail Unplugged," centered on candid conversations about what retailers are seeing now and where they’re headed next. More than 150 senior leaders took the stage, representing companies including Tractor Supply, TikTok Shop, StockX, The Estée Lauder Companies, Crocs, David's Bridal, and Equinox.
The agenda ran across three tracks: Retail Excellence, Understanding the Customer, and Brand Storytelling. Discussions covered everything from AI agents and the evolving role of the store to social shopping and the customer experience. For many retailers, the conversation is shifting from what they want to do in 2027 to how they’re going to make it happen.
Concord joined the fun in Nashville and, alongside our partner Bloomreach, hosted a private boot fitting experience for retail leaders at Ariat's Nashville store. Below, we share the themes that stood out and where we see retailers turning them into results.
AI showed up across the agenda in a lot of different ways, from agents that can support the customer journey to debates surrounding AI-generated creative. Attendees even had the chance to build live agents during a hands-on workshop. Together, the sessions showed just how quickly AI is moving from experimentation into real retail use cases.
Putting those use cases into practice, though, still comes back to the data. Agents, recommendations, and personalized content need accurate, connected customer data to work well. For retailers, that means the work happening behind the scenes – connecting systems, improving data quality, and establishing the right governance – matters just as much as the AI customers ultimately see.
The physical store had a strong showing, including how stores fit into connected commerce, the relationship between store and ecommerce growth, and the role omnichannel convenience plays in building loyalty. Speakers explained that stores are increasingly doing more than one job, serving as fulfillment hubs, brand showcases, and service centers all at once.
Making that all feel seamless for the customer requires the systems behind the experience to work together. Accurate inventory, modern point of sale, and flexible fulfillment options like buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS), and curbside pickup all play a role in connecting what happens online with what happens in the store.
Retail technology was a focus throughout the event, with sessions on retooling the ecommerce tech stack, creating more frictionless digital experiences, and deciding which technologies are worth the investment. The "Overhyped!" session put the last question front and center, while another workshop explored what retailers and technology providers need from each other to make those investments successful.
For retailers looking to modernize, those decisions can have an impact well beyond the ecommerce platform itself. Merchandising, pricing, promotions, returns, and fulfillment are often closely connected, which makes understanding requirements and dependencies upfront an important part of any replatforming effort.
Shoppers are giving retailers plenty to think about heading into 2027. Sessions looked at changing customer sentiment, increasingly price-conscious consumers, and how brands can use CRM and crowdsourcing to build stronger relationships with their customers. Loyalty and personalization were part of that discussion too, including what a modern loyalty program should look like and how personalization can drive both engagement and transactions.
For retailers, that means looking beyond one-off campaigns or traditional points-based loyalty programs. Customer segmentation, personalized marketing, and ongoing optimization can help brands respond to how people shop and engage over time. The more retailers understand their customers and put those insights to use, the more relevant those experiences can become.
The line between shopping and entertainment continues to get harder to define. Sessions covered video and social shopping, creator partnerships, product drops, and immersive store experiences, with TikTok Shop and StockX both taking the main stage. It was a good reminder that product discovery increasingly happens well beyond a retailer’s website.
That puts more pressure on the digital experience that comes next. Whether a shopper arrives from a creator video, social post, or viral product drop, the experience needs to be fast, mobile-friendly, and ready to handle sudden spikes in traffic. Retailers also need to think about the full path from discovery to purchase, especially as that journey becomes less predictable.
Shoptalk wasn’t all sessions. During the week, Concord and Bloomreach hosted a private boot fitting at Ariat's store in the heart of downtown Nashville.
The evening brought together live music, great food, and a one-of-a-kind shopping experience. Between fittings, we met new faces from across the industry and heard firsthand what they're learning in their work.
It was also a fun way to bring some of the week's conversations around personalization, in-store experiences, and brand loyalty to life. Plus, everyone got to head home with a new pair of boots!
Many of the themes that came up at Shoptalk don’t happen in isolation. For one major national retailer, Concord brought together several of these areas as part of a broader digital revenue acceleration program. The work included BOPIS backed by real-time inventory, a centralized data hub and Integration Center of Excellence, a MarTech and CDP roadmap with multi-channel orchestration, and new digital experiences across mobile and microsites.
Over four years, the retailer saw an 800% increase in digital revenue and a 2X improvement in digital marketing KPIs. Curbside pickup and BOPIS helped drive a 3X increase in conversion, while near real-time dashboards gave teams a consistent view of performance across the business.
Shoptalk Fall offered a good look at where retailers are putting their attention heading into 2027. AI, personalization, social commerce, and new in-store experiences are creating plenty of opportunities but making them work in practice still depends on the basics: reliable data, connected systems, accurate inventory, and technology that can keep up.
As retailers finalize their plans for next year, the question is how to make those new ideas work within the technology and processes they already have. That may mean modernizing parts of the tech stack, connecting data across systems, or simply getting more from the investments already in place.
Concord works with retailers across ecommerce, omnichannel fulfillment, CRM and personalization data, and platforms like Oracle Retail Xstore POS. We help teams connect the technology and data behind the customer experience and turn their priorities into practical next steps.
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