Pulse 2026: What retail is really saying about growth right now

One of the most influential dates in the eCommerce calendar is just around the corner. This year, IDHL is sponsoring Vervaunt’s Pulse eCommerce event, a conference that consistently attracts senior decision‑makers from some of the most progressive retail brands in the market.

Pulse has earned its reputation by putting retailers first, creating a genuinely brand‑led space where teams can speak openly about what’s working and where bets are being placed next. It’s retailers sharing real strategy with their peers, making Pulse a useful barometer for where commerce actually is.

Looking at this year’s agenda, the themes feel both familiar and telling. They reflect exactly what we’re seeing day to day across our clients.

Loyalty as a lever, not a programme

If there’s one theme that keeps resurfacing throughout the conference, it’s loyalty.

Most retailers would happily acquire more customers. But in a market where budgets are under pressure and performance is being scrutinised more closely than ever, the conversation is shifting. Brands are increasingly focused on maximising value from the customers they already have.

That idea isn’t new. What is new is the context. Finding meaningful ways to foster loyalty in a climate where growth is harder to unlock requires more discipline, not more activity. Many of the discussions at Pulse circle back to the same tension: chasing immediate returns versus protecting longer-term investments like SEO, platform improvement and brand‑led content.

The strongest takeaway here is consistency. The most resilient businesses aren’t simply buying more demand at ever‑higher costs, they’re building better customer journeys and increasing lifetime value.

Interest in agentic commerce

Naturally, AI is taking up plenty of space in the spotlight; however, agentic commerce is an area where reality is tempering enthusiasm.

Panels exploring this topic focus on how the industry is actually approaching agentic technology today, addressing key considerations from the current limits of AI adoption to new developments such as Shopify’s collaboration with ChatGPT.

The takeaway is broadly what we’re expecting at this point: innovation is certainly moving fast, but real-world adoption is still limited.

From my perspective, this reflects where the market is really at: in the experimentation and learning phase, not the execution‑at‑scale phase.

A creative counterbalance to AI

Perhaps the most encouraging theme running through Pulse is the renewed emphasis on people‑led creativity.

As AI‑generated content becomes more accessible, brands are rediscovering the value of personality and authentic storytelling. For sectors built on brand identity, this has never been more relevant. Several sessions reinforce a simple but important message: differentiation in an AI-led market comes from originality, not volume.

Creative specialists aren’t being edged out, they’re becoming more important. Roles are shifting towards setting direction and ensuring brands still sound and feel human. This aligns closely with how we see the market evolving. AI is a powerful tool for scale and efficiency, but brand meaning is still built by people.

The US: opportunity with complexity attached

The session on entering and scaling in the US adds another layer of realism to the agenda. The opportunity is obvious: demand and speed of decision‑making work in a brand’s favour. But so do the challenges.

Tariffs and political uncertainty are making trading harder, even as pockets of growth remain. Recent performance data across our client base shows the US as one of the only markets consistently growing, which is one of the reasons IDHL continues to invest there.

We remain optimistic, not because it’s easy, but because it’s a decisive market that presses forward during economic uncertainty.

The connecting thread: growth through depth

If you step back from the individual sessions, a clear overarching theme emerges: driving growth in a difficult market by going deeper, not broader.

There’s a shared recognition across retailers that growth is harder to achieve in this market. Demand isn’t disappearing, but costs are rising and margins are tighter. The easy wins that fueled rapid scale previously are far less reliable. In this context, the brands making progress aren’t chasing more channels or more audiences - they’re extracting more value from what they already have. This means:

• Prioritising retention over relentless acquisition
• Investing in brand‑led content and creative distinction
• Using AI deliberately rather than reactively
• Making clearer decisions about markets,channels and platforms

Continue the conversation with IDHL

The themes coming out of Pulse reflect challenges many brands are grappling with right now. If you want to unpack what this means for your eCommerce strategy, get in touch with our experts for a grounded, experience‑led perspective.