The most innovative retail companies of 2026

The most innovative retailers in 2025 used technology not to chase trends, but to solve real problems.

As tariffs squeezed margins and labor costs climbed, companies scrambled to adapt. Shopify opened its platform to agentic AI shoppers, letting customers purchase directly within ChatGPT. Amazon launched Lens Live to turn smartphones into instant product scanners. Rebel scaled its re-commerce platform into new categories, processing over 70,000 returned products weekly and keeping 25 million pounds of goods out of landfills.

Others doubled down on heritage and experience. J.Crew proved nostalgia sells when paired with a carefully curated archive. Printemps brought its European department store model to Manhattan, where food and beverage now accounts for 35% of sales. Fanatics launched Fanatics Studios to produce sports content, creating new touchpoints to keep fans inside its ecosystem.

On the operational side, Walmart insulated shoppers from trade wars by keeping grocery prices low while building higher-margin revenue streams. Its marketplace and advertising businesses grew 37% and 28% respectively, helping the company achieve e-commerce profitability for the first time.

1. Shopify

For opening its doors to agentic AI shoppers

As chatbots begin to reshape online shopping, Shopify is racing to ensure the five million merchants using its platform aren’t left behind. In fall 2025, Shopify introduced a partnership with ChatGPT that lets merchants sell directly within the chatbot, so customers can discover and buy products without ever leaving the platform. The company also launched a universal cart option that allows shoppers to add items from multiple retailers through a conversational interface whereby a bot can fill your cart rather than forcing you to hop between different websites.

Behind the scenes, Shopify is also deploying AI to lighten the load for merchants. It built an AI-powered store builder that lets retailers build a functioning storefront by simply describing what they want. The company also upgraded Sidekick, its AI assistant, with voice chat capabilities in more than 20 languages, visual asset generation, and analytics support. The bet appears to be paying off: Shopify reported 9% year-over-year revenue growth in Q3, reaching $1.67 billion.

Read more about ⁠Shopify, No. 3 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2026.

2. Walmart

For insulating shoppers from the trade wars

In 2025, Walmart got better at being Walmart: keeping prices down, moving inventory faster, and leveraging its scale to weather storms.

While tariffs squeezed competitors, the megachain kept grocery prices low to pull shoppers in, then built higher-margin businesses around them. Its marketplace and fulfillment services for third-party sellers grew 37%, while its advertising business—which leverages data from serving 90% of U.S. households—jumped 28%. The strategy worked: Walmart achieved e-commerce profitability for the first time and grew overall sales more than 5%.

The company also leaned into AI where it actually matters. Sparky, an AI shopping assistant in the Walmart app, helps customers find products. Wally, an internal AI tool, helps merchants troubleshoot inventory issues in real time. And Walmart used its massive infrastructure to push delivery speeds faster—three-hour deliveries grew 91% year-over-year, with plans to reach 95% of the U.S. population by the end of fiscal 2026.

Read more about ⁠Walmart, No. 9 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2026.

3. Fanatics

For parlaying its sports merch and collectibles into live events and film and television

Most sports retailers stop at the jersey, but Fanatics is building an entertainment empire. In 2025, the sports merchandising giant’s annual fan festival, Fanatics Fest, nearly doubled attendance from 70,000 to over 125,000, signaling strong demand for live experiences beyond traditional retail.

Now Fanatics has launched Fanatics Studios, a joint venture with OBB Media, with a mission to create, finance, produce, and distribute content at the intersection of sports and culture. Fanatics Studios, which projects over nine figures in revenue in its first year, arrived with deals already in place: co-producing the 2026 ESPY Awards with ESPN, creating original content for WWE’s digital platforms, and partnering with Major League Baseball on a 2026 World Baseball Classic docuseries.

Looking ahead, Fanatics Studios will produce the official film for the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic games, and is developing documentaries, live event specials, and digital series—proof that content isn’t a side project but a way to keep fans inside the Fanatics ecosystem while selling more merch in the process.

4. Square

For updating its signature point-of-sale system to meet the needs of today’s retailers

For most retailers, a point-of-sale system is just the thing that processes payments. Square wants to change that. After six years without launching a new point-of-sale device, the company unveiled Square Handheld—a pocket-sized business command center that weighs just 11 ounces. The device lets sellers manage everything from payments to inventory and back-of-house operations on the go, giving teams the speed and flexibility they need in fast-paced retail environments.

The hardware is just the entry point. Square is building an entire ecosystem around modern retail needs, from accepting Bitcoin payments to launching AI-powered analytics that predict future sales and automate marketing campaigns. The company also rolled out subscription billing tools, recognizing that more businesses want to offer monthly boxes or memberships without juggling multiple platforms.

That shift toward recurring revenue models is especially relevant for Square’s fastest-growing user base: content creators and small media businesses. The company now offers subscription management for premium content and exclusive newsletters, plus integrated social media tools that let creators share products and monetized content directly to Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

The numbers tell the story: In Q2 2025, Square sellers processed more than $64 billion in gross payment volume, pushing the company’s gross profit up 11% year-over-year to $1.03 billion.

5. J.Crew

For using its heritage and legacy to sell customers updates to its classic styles

Since J.Crew relaunched an iconic catalog in September 2024—with Demi Moore on the cover wearing one of her personal vintage J.Crew sweaters from the ’90s—the brand has been mining its own archive and doubled down on its heritage.

The strategy came to life during New York Fashion Week 2025, when J.Crew transformed a landmark building in Lower Manhattan into a museum of its 40-year history. Visitors entered through a lobby lined with archival photography and vintage catalog pages before discovering the centerpiece: the Rollneck Generation campaign. The initiative celebrated the relaunch of J.Crew’s ’80s classic sweater with a roster of rising stars including Taylour Paige, Dominic Sessa, and Benito Skinner.

Beyond the splashy activations, J.Crew launched the “J.Crew Archive” capsule—a collection that reissues beloved pieces like limited-edition denim jackets, flannel shirts, and striped tees. The brand also leaned into nostalgia on social media with #JCrewHeritage, encouraging customers to share their vintage finds and well-worn favorites.

The Rollneck sweater alone generated 42,000 keyword searches during launch week, with Google searches spiking 900%. Overall, the heritage focus helped J.Crew drive a 20% increase in returning customers and 4-5% sales growth compared to the same quarter in 2024.

6. Printemps

For reimagining the department store

In March 2025, the French retailer opened its first U.S. location in Manhattan’s financial district, importing a European model that treats shopping as an experience rather than a transaction. The store is less than half the size of a typical American department store, with far less space devoted to clothing racks and cosmetics counters. The product selection is tightly curated—a quarter of its brands are either exclusive or new to the U.S.—and customers are encouraged to wander through a space designed to evoke a luxurious Parisian residence.

What really sets Printemps apart, however, is the food. The Manhattan store houses five dining venues, including a Champagne bar, café, raw bar, and fine dining restaurant. And it’s not just window dressing: Food and beverage accounts for roughly 35% of overall sales at the New York location, proving that people will linger (and spend) when you give them a reason to stay.

The approach has worked even in a tough market: Printemps told the Wall Street Journal that the first two months delivered sales “above our expectations.”

7. Rebel

For diverting returns from landfills and putting them back on the market

American retailers return about 17% of their inventory, or about 8.4 billion pounds of products annually, and most of it ends up in landfills, regardless of condition. Rebel is trying to change that math.

The recommerce platform—which started as a baby gear business and expanded to home goods, travel products, and outdoor gear in 2025—processes more than 70,000 unique products weekly at its 300,000-square-foot warehouse in Charlotte, North Carolina. There, it turns returned and overstock goods into deals for budget-conscious shoppers. The volume is so substantial that Rebel’s website adds new deals every 15 minutes.

To handle that scale, Rebel built an AI-powered system that detects, logs, and tags the condition of each return, then determines the most efficient path from retailer to consumer. The company’s smart-pricing algorithm auto-adjusts item prices based on demand, condition, and inventory more than 10 times daily, allowing Rebel to offer shoppers savings of up to 70% off retail prices.

The growth has been steep: Rebel’s revenue increased 1,806% in just three years, and by August 2025, the company had already surpassed its entire 2024 revenue.

8. Amazon

For using AI and personalization to help customers navigate the ‘everything store’

Navigating Amazon’s “everything store” has always meant wading through endless options. In 2025, Amazon used AI to flip that experience and let technology do the heavy lifting while shoppers sit back.

In September, the retail giant launched Lens Live, which turns smartphones into real-time product scanners by letting you point your camera at any item and suggesting matching products directly in the camera view.

The company’s AI shopping assistant, Rufus, also got a major upgrade with Shopping Memory, which recalls past purchases, browsing history, abandoned carts, and even how much time shoppers spent looking at different items. Rufus can now ask clarifying questions, compare products across categories, and surface relevant deals based on individual shopping patterns. The assistant expanded to cover $700 billion worth of products and rolled out to 13 additional international marketplaces. Though it is a free service, Rufus has generated $700 million in operating profit in 2025.

9. Field.iO

For creating easily deployed immersive retail experiences

Creating an immersive retail experience used to cost $5 million and take two years to build. Field.io has collapsed that timeline to four months and $150,000.

The London-based studio spent 15 years building custom digital environments for clients like Nike and Chanel. In 2025, it packaged that expertise into Lucient OS—a platform that transforms physical stores into intelligent, responsive spaces. The system uses anonymous sensors to track movement and behavior, then adjusts lighting, sound, projections, and even scent in real time. Since the AI processing happens on-site rather than in the cloud, customer data never leaves the building.

For Nike, Field.iO built a centralized digital hub that manages immersive visuals across 94+ flagship stores globally. The platform can adapt to any screen size or architecture, which means new stores can deploy experiences quickly. Content shifts based on hyperlocal context while staying responsive to broader campaigns and product launches. The results: 40% operational efficiency gains and 47% conversion rate improvement.

By reducing deployment time by 82% and costs by 97%, Field.iO is making these responsive retail experiences accessible to thousands of retailers who couldn’t previously afford them.

10. VenHub

For creating the fully automated convenience store of the future

VenHub is betting that the future of convenience stores doesn’t include humans—just robotic arms and algorithms.

In 2025, the Las Vegas-based company opened five fully automated locations in Los Angeles, including Hollywood, Glendale, North Hollywood, the LAX/Metro Transit Center, and Union Station. The stores operate 24/7 without staff, and unlike traditional convenience stores, where products sit on open shelves vulnerable to theft, VenHub keeps everything behind bulletproof glass. Customers order through a touchscreen app, and robotic arms retrieve chips, soft drinks, basic medicines, or small electronics and hand them over within seconds.

The unmanned model is resonating far beyond urban transit hubs dealing with labor costs and shoplifting. VenHub has racked up more than $400 million in pre-orders for its smart-store kiosks, with interest coming from unexpected places: a 200-person community in East Texas that doesn’t want to drive miles for sundries, and a gated Connecticut neighborhood where parents want a safe, walkable option for their kids to grab snacks. Since the stores require no employees and can be installed in just seven days, they’re ideal for locations that can’t support traditional staffing.

Explore the full 2026 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 720 honorees that are reshaping industries and culture. We’ve selected the companies making the biggest impact across 59 categories, including advertising, applied AI, biotech, retail, sustainability, and more.

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