Connecting Global Trends to Local Retail Realities in 2026

NRF is a bit like the Super Bowl of retail industry events. It’s big, it’s busy and it’s attended by the who’s who of the retail and tech industry. Hosted in New York in January each year, it’s seen as one of the key venues where emerging priorities and technologies are debated and showcased.

But how do the conversations discussed at NRF translate into a South African context, where retailers face a unique set of challenges? The only way to find out was to ask, which is exactly what we as redPanda Software did when we hosted our first Retail Forum last month. The idea was to get executives and tech leaders from some of the country’s biggest retailers into a room and create a safe space where they could talk about their strategies and pain points and share where they think the industry is headed in the future. There were a number of similarities between what was said in New York and what the retailers told us during these sessions at our offices in Cape Town. But there were also a number of differences. 

Here are four key takeaways. 

#1 Real openness is a key priority

Vendors often claim to be open to appeal to customers who want flexibility, transparency, and freedom from vendor lock-in. But, in reality, their products offer limited interoperability, impose high data egress fees, and rely on proprietary data schemas that make it difficult to move information elsewhere. Why is this a problem? Because no retailer can afford to face massive penalties simply for switching vendors, especially if circumstances beyond their control force that decision. Imagine a scenario where new sanctions suddenly prevent businesses in certain regions from using a particular technology platform. While this is just an example, recent global volatility has shown how quickly geopolitical or regulatory shifts can disrupt even the most established technology relationships. 

Today, retailers want openness that is verifiable. They also need composable environments, which make it possible to easily unplug one component and plug in another. This is key to business resilience. At the Retail Forum, we spoke a lot about wrapping, not ripping. A recurring theme in our discussions was the value of using technologies that allow them to retain core pieces of their infrastructure while modernising around it.

#2 Mapping value is key to success

Most retailers have spent the last decade accumulating loads of SaaS products. But how many of these products do they actually still use? There is a real need to review tech environments and assess what tools add value and what you no longer use. This can be especially significant in cost-sensitive environments such as South Africa where data movement fees can get very expensive, very quickly. When retailers streamline their environments and only use SaaS where it’s appropriate, they can save a lot of money and also improve event intelligence. 

For many retailers, reducing event to action latency is a major priority. Let’s say something happens in store, how long does it take for you to respond to that event? Instead of sending every piece of operational data to the cloud, retailers are increasingly analysing certain data streams on-site, in real time. This enables systems to detect and respond to events, like stock shortages, demand spikes, or unusual customer behaviour, as they happen. The result is faster decision-making, reduced reliance on constant cloud connectivity, and greater control over data, which is especially beneficial in environments where speed and responsiveness are critical.

#3 Truth is essential to agentic success

Right now, there’s a lot of talk about agentic commerce. In action, let’s imagine you want a pair of Nike takkies and you want them fast. With agentic commerce, you’d ask for the Nike takkies in the size you need and a large language model (LLM) will do all the research for you. It’ll tell you that the shoes are available from X retailer but will only be delivered next week, however, if you are willing to pay R20 more from Y retailer you can get them today. It’ll negotiate for you and find the best product out there based on your specific needs and parameters. 

These customer insights are helping drive the growth of retail media networks. These digital advertising platforms are owned and operated by retailers and offer a space where brands can advertise their products directly to shoppers across the retailer’s channels. By leveraging first-party loyalty data, retailers can sell targeted ad space directly to brands across their apps, websites, and even in-store digital screens. This strategy is so effective that it is, in some cases, even allowing businesses to fund technology projects around agentic AI and composable infrastructure.

But insight driven commerce is only possible with comprehensive, high-quality data that is accessible, up-to-date, and connected across all channels and systems. At the Retail Forum we hosted last month, one of the retailers suggested that agentic will never come to South Africa, but I disagree. It might not happen in the same way it happens internationally but I do think that we will see a platform like WhatsApp, for example, being used to bring agentic capabilities to local consumers.

#4 Trust is essential

There has been an unfortunate uptick in organised retail crime both locally and worldwide. As retailers reduce friction and expand how your customers can shop, they expand exposure to bad actors. This is coming up more and more with ecommerce returns. There are the regular customers who buy something, change their mind and then return it. And then there are the criminals who will buy something online, use it and then return it. Or they will return the box filled with something else (or nothing at all). This reality makes trust more important than ever before. If you know your customer and trust your customer, you can give them the opportunity to access certain promotions and innovations.

In line with this, something that came up a lot at NRF and in our conversations with local retailers is that technology is important but the human element in retail is making a strong comeback. A recurring theme was around the need to invest more in frontline staff. The strategy is simple: use AI and other tech to automate the repetitive, mundane tasks and free employees up to focus on what really matters. Instead of standing behind a till scanning products all day, staff can be empowered to do the things that add real value – like building relationships with customers, offering informed product advice, and ultimately creating better in-store experiences.