2025 was challenging for online retailers. Website traffic dipped as AI-powered search previews reduced traditional click-throughs and changed how people discover products. Rising costs for ads, staffing, and shipping squeezed even the best-run teams. Shoppers were cautious too, sticking to essentials as the cost of living continued to bite. Competition intensified across low-cost marketplaces, global platforms, and social commerce.
On top of this, international operations became harder. Changing behaviour, new formats, and rapid shifts in AI-driven discovery made it tougher to keep global teams, content, and technology aligned. In 2026, the key to e-commerce success is ensuring that your marketing, operations, and customer experience all work together, and staying flexible as things change.
The big shifts shaping e-commerce in 2026
Here are six e-commerce trends we think will matter most this year:
1. AI and predictive commerce
AI has moved far beyond chatbots and simple product suggestions. It now supports personalisation, merchandising, pricing, and customer service at scale. Predictive commerce is the next step: systems capable of anticipating what customers will need based on patterns that humans often miss. A prompt like ‘Reorder my usual coffee’ represents both immediate demand and a long-term intent signal, and AI can use this to make smarter, faster decisions.
What this means for you:
The biggest value of AI now lies in reducing uncertainty. It can help you see what customers are likely to do next, how demand varies across markets, and which levers – price, promotions, creative – have the strongest effect. For international brands, this intelligence becomes a way to prioritise spend, content, and inventory by market.
Start with one or two high-value challenges, such as demand forecasting in key countries or tightening your price elasticity understanding (essentially, how sensitive customers in each market are to price changes). Test, observe, and refine. Over time, the aim is to build a feedback loop where customer behaviour directly shapes planning, content and CX.
2. AI-driven search and discovery
Search has shifted from lists of links to AI-powered answers, previews and recommendations. Consumers are discovering products through auto-generated summaries, personalised feeds and multi-format SERPs. Paid search is becoming more opaque as automated bidding systems make more decisions on your behalf.
What this means for you:
Visibility increasingly relies on how well AI systems understand and trust your content. Structured data, clean product information, and locally relevant signals feed the models that determine what appears first. Optimising for AI-driven features is no longer optional.
For paid channels, the challenge is growing automation. If you do not understand how intent is interpreted in each market – especially across languages – you risk wasting spend. Strengthen your structured data foundation, use formats that appear in AI-led results, and monitor intent signals market by market to keep campaigns efficient.
3. Cross-border growth and localisation
International expansion is no longer a matter of exporting a website to new markets. Audiences expect local language nuances, cultural relevance, and familiar payment methods. Search behaviour differs widely between countries, as do motivations and barriers to purchase.
What this means for you:
Localisation needs to be more than translation. Localise product pages, creative, offers and UX elements so they resonate with the expectations of each market. Working with Local In-Market Experts can ensure content is culturally accurate, competitive and aligned with local search behaviour. Brands that take localisation seriously consistently see higher conversion and stronger engagement.
4. Social commerce and creator-led sales
Social media has evolved into a full commerce ecosystem. TikTok Shop, Instagram Shopping, and livestream platforms across Asia are reshaping product discovery and purchase behaviour. Crucially, smaller creators often outperform major influencers by producing authentic, localised content that reflects real consumer behaviour. Social and search are increasingly merging as discovery channels.
What this means for you:
Treat social as both a discovery channel and a sales channel. Invest in local creators who already have cultural trust and tailor tone, content styles and payment options by market. Creator content should not sit in isolation; integrate it into your broader e-commerce and performance marketing strategy to amplify its reach.
5. Mobile-first and hybrid experiences
Smartphones remain a dominant device for browsing and buying, but how people use them varies across regions. Customers expect a smooth, consistent experience across websites, apps, marketplaces and physical stores.
What this means for you:
Make mobile the default environment. Prioritise fast-loading pages, intuitive navigation, and trusted local payment options. Ensure stock, pricing and product data are synchronised across all channels to avoid broken journeys. Hybrid experiences – such as buy-online-return-in-store – are becoming an expectation rather than a differentiator.
6. Increased competition across channels
Marketplaces, social commerce and traditional search are all becoming more competitive. Standing out requires sharper positioning, better creative, and more precise use of first-party data.
What this means for you:
Monitor competitors and emerging platforms in each of your priority markets. Build campaigns around peak global and regional dates and use first-party data to drive more personalised and efficient search and social activity. Relevance and timing matter more than scale alone.
A practical 2026 e-commerce checklist
With all this in mind, here is a concise, action-led checklist for the year ahead:
- Use AI where it has the clearest commercial impact, such as forecasting or pricing tests in key markets.
- Connect social and website content so discovery and purchase journeys reinforce each other.
- Prioritise mobile performance and local payment preferences.
- Use chat and voice tools to gather intent signals that can inform content and targeting.
- Keep messaging, stock and product information aligned across channels.
- Plan campaigns around local events and cultural moments using a structured global calendar (more on this below).
- Refresh priority pages and campaigns before the all-important Q4 with updated structured content and local imagery.
- Make product information complete, transparent and trustworthy, especially where sustainability or provenance matters.
- Test one new market or platform with localised messaging, learn, and then scale.
- Review performance regularly and share insights across markets to accelerate learning.
Key retail dates and cultural hooks
Knowing key retail dates is essential for international marketers. That’s why Oban publishes a free annual Global Marketing Calendar with 140+ cultural moments, holidays, and retail peaks, curated by our Local In-Market Experts. It helps you plan campaigns, spot trends, and reach audiences worldwide. Here are a few key dates and peaks to watch in 2026:
- January–February: Lunar New Year, Year of the Horse – Vital for Asia-Pacific markets. Campaigns should leverage themes of energy and progress while respecting local cultural nuance.
- April–June: Sustainability-focused periods – Earth Day, Fashion Revolution Week, and World Environment Day reward brands that take authentic, measurable action.
- July: US Semiquincentennial – 250 years of independence offers a cultural hook for American consumers and global audiences interested in heritage themes.
- July–August: FIFA World Cup (North America) – A global spotlight on sport, culture, and fandom, offering opportunities for engagement far beyond the host nations.
- September: Back-to-school period – A key window for product launches, UX refreshes, and cross-border planning ahead of Q4.
- November–December: Singles’ Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas – The traditional peaks remain critical, but localised campaigns and differentiated propositions are the only way to stand out amid global saturation.
- All year: micro-moments – Regional observances, awareness days, and cultural festivals provide additional opportunities for relevant engagement in each market.
Five e-commerce events to watch in 2026
Staying on top of key industry events is also useful for planning campaigns, spotting trends, and networking. Here are five e-commerce and retail events to watch in 2026:
- National Retail Federation (NRF) Retail’s Big Show, New York (Jan) – Retail innovation and technology trends.
- Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Las Vegas (Jan) – Emerging tech shaping e-commerce.
- E-commerce Berlin Expo (Feb) – DACH market insights (Germany, Austria, Switzerland).
- Shoptalk, Las Vegas (Mar) – Omnichannel strategy and consumer trends.
- eCommerce Expo, London (Sep) – B2C and B2B commerce, marketing, and tech.
Looking for e-commerce growth in 2026?
To do well this year, e-commerce brands should use smart technology alongside local expertise, connect their search, social and paid advertising across markets, and adjust campaigns to suit each audience. Brands that can spot customer needs early will have an advantage.
At Oban, we help brands grow internationally by combining global reach with local expertise and turning insight into action in each market. If you want to get your e-commerce strategy ready for 2026 and beyond, get in touch.
Let’s accelerate action together
At Oban, we believe change happens when we act, support each other, and keep moving forward. These stories show how small steps can make a big difference. If you want to improve your digital marketing, get in touch. Let’s get started.
