By Jill Standish
Nowhere is the impact of relentless disruption facing retailers felt more than in merchandising. After all, merchandising sits at the core of retail, connecting product selection and customer engagement and impacting both brand loyalty and sales. Everything from forecasting trends, to locating products at the right price, to pinpointing how and where to sell, to partnering with inventory and fulfillment teams, sits with the retail merchant.
Traditionally, margins and sales were the measures that defined a merchant’s success. They won by understanding seasonal trends, interpreting market dynamics and having strong supplier relationships they could rely on.
Today, that environment looks very different. Economic pressures, geopolitical uncertainty, inflation and persistent supply chain volatility are no longer one-off disruptions, they’re continuing realities that retailers must contend with daily.
At the same time, consumers are also feeling the pressure, with more than half (54%) viewing uncertainty as the new normal, according to Accenture’s Consumer Pulse survey. In response, retailers must embed resilience and expand what “consumer focused” means.
It’s no longer enough to sell products. To truly move the needle, merchants will need to focus on building consumer intimacy.
That requires merchants immerse themselves in understanding the individual consumer: their needs, their desires and their world. With consumer behaviors shifting so quickly, merchants can’t rely on static plans. They must instead make real-time adjustments, rapidly test-and-learn and be ready to pivot when the unexpected happens.
Enter the ‘Consumer Visionary’
Successful merchants are evolving into “consumer visionaries,” leaders who are blending their understanding of people with technology to make quick and informed decisions. They are creating engaging experiences and content, prioritizing sustainability, and building partnerships that go beyond the transactional nature of supplier relationships.
But here’s the thing. It’s not just understanding what people buy, it’s the why. Being curious about psychology and culture and mixing that with the right technology can help turn insights into action that helps the customer and drives business growth.
Just look at social commerce. Platforms like TikTok Shop blurred the line between content and commerce. Feeds now feature live demos, shopping events and creator picks.
Merchants Will Need to Work in Dual Mode
It requires retail merchants to be good at two complementary skills to succeed as consumer visionaries.
First, they must act as content curators by blending online and off-line experiences and collapsing the barrier between the merchant and the customer. It means taking on the role of an influencer, actively posting about products on social media and showcasing brand personality through content that tests new ideas, drives sales and influences behavior. It also means a closer, more symbiotic partnership with marketing, whether within the retailer’s own branded domain or through external partners.
Full integration across emerging platforms and payment methods, from third-party marketplaces to payment facilitators, ensures a seamless, cohesive journey from awareness to purchase and beyond. This calls for carefully curating product presentation, experience touchpoints and logistics into one seamless performance, delivering a unified brand experience that earns trust and fosters loyalty.
Second, they will need to coordinate the ecosystem to manage the end-to-end consumer experience by using AI and other technologies. This not only makes teams more effective but can help create unique interactions that shape how people discover and buy products. This goes beyond deciding what products to carry, it’s about coordinating suppliers, technology platforms and partners. It also involves adapting instantly to trends, market dynamics, inventory and consumer factors by using live data and insights. All this while dynamically adjusting curated assortments, layouts and pricing to ensure local relevance and customer satisfaction.
Four Paths Forward
Achieving success as a consumer visionary depends upon getting four foundational areas right.
• Unpacking the customer — Uncover motivations, emotions and jobs-to-be-done, not just purchases. Identify emerging signals and anchor every decision, from assortment to content to service, in what feels timely, relevant and resonant.
• Optimize to elevate — Leverage AI to streamline routine work so that merchants can focus on strategy. Effortlessly integrate digital and physical operations and build data capabilities to enable real-time decisions across content, pricing, inventory and experience.
A good example of technology making it easier for merchants to make faster, more profitable decisions, comes from Profitmind. Using a blend of AI agents, machine learning and generative AI, the retail technology company helps retail merchants make faster and more profitable decisions across pricing, inventory and planning.
• Coordinate connected offers — Design value propositions that stand out through engagement and emotion. Present a consistent brand across online, store and social channels, with curated assortments for specific needs.
• Engage with agility — Embrace an experimental mindset, react quickly to market trends, iterate quickly and create stand-out moments that surprise, delight and build loyalty.
The Future Belongs to Visionaries
As they prepare for the future, the most successful consumer visionaries will be those that rise above complexity while staying anchored in consumer value. They will combine data, imagination and technology with a clear understanding of what the customer wants, often before they do.
Jill Standish is global retail lead at Accenture.
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