Retailers Using Mobile Apps to Double by 2026

The 2025 Connected Retail Experience Study: Mobility is Driving Associate Productivity by Incisiv, conducted in collaboration with Verizon Business and Cisco, shows that retailers are dramatically shifting their priorities to focus on digital solutions to help improve associate productivity and offset ongoing macroeconomic factors like labor shortages and pressure on supply and demand efficiencies. The annual study, now in its fourth year, identifies four major trends reshaping the retail landscape:

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• Critical Labor Challenges Drive Technology Investment: Staffing remains the most pressing operational challenge, with 98% of grocery retailers and 88% of specialty retailers struggling with hiring and retention. This ongoing pressure has driven 81% of retailers to prioritize technology investments that improve associate productivity for 2025.
  
• Mobile Technology Becomes Critical for Success: Mobile solutions are emerging as the foundation of retail operations. By 2026, 42% of retailers plan to implement mobile apps with in-store features, up from 19% currently.
  
• Personalization at Scale Remains a Big Opportunity: Understanding that personalization is the key to success, retailers struggle with the ability to scale this “segment of one” approach. Only 13% of retailers are satisfied with their current personalization strategies, as most lack the capabilities for individualized personalization and are limited to basic segmentation tactics.
  
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) is Prioritized for High-Value Use Cases: Retailers are taking a more focused approach to AI, prioritizing use cases with clear return-on-investment and strong organizational demand. 90% of retailers believe AI adoption will be necessary to compete in the future and 49% are actively testing or implementing AI solutions. Top priorities include workforce optimization to address labor shortages and enhance inventory management.

“Retail is at a turning point,” said Gaurav Pant, Chief Insights Office at Incisiv. “The focus on convenience, driven by labor challenges and changing consumer expectations, is fundamentally reshaping how retailers approach technology investment and customer experience.”

“As retailers deploy solutions like AI-enabled inventory tracking, video analytics, and mobile apps, their networks need to be able to meet these increasing demands,” said James Hughes, Retail CTO, Verizon Business. “To address these network bandwidth needs, retailers are deploying solutions like 5G business internet, private networks, and mobile connectivity, which can offer retailers upgraded speed, resiliency, and bandwidth, as well as consistent connectivity across their retail footprint.”

“As retailers venture further into their digital transformation journeys, the focus is increasingly on creating powerful, modular, and intelligent solutions that enable new functionalities, smarter insights and faster decision-making,” added Sabrina Gonzalez, Global Retail Marketing at Cisco.

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Source – Prnewswire