The Surgical Strike Shopper
Store traffic is up, but today's customer arrives with a mission. Are you ready for them?
Everyone's talking about AI agents shopping on your behalf. Meanwhile, real life has other plans: people are going back to stores.
Store foot traffic is up across all formats in 2026. Despite roughly two decades of "retail is dying" headlines, 80% of all retail transactions still happen in physical stores.
What has changed is the shopper. They're not browsing anymore. They arrive knowing what they want, they move efficiently, and they leave. Researchers are calling it the surgical strike shopper.
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