Playbook
Building Adaptive Specialty Retail Stores
Q1, 2026
Specialty retailers are navigating rising expectations for in-store experience while facing tighter labor availability, operational complexity, and growing pressure to protect margins. Customers move fluidly between self-service and assisted interactions, while store teams are asked to deliver expertise, speed, and consistency across every touchpoint. Many retailers struggle to scale exceptional moments into everyday execution, constrained by rigid processes, disconnected systems, and store environments that were not designed for constant change.
This playbook examines how specialty retailers can build adaptive store environments that balance experience and efficiency by design. It provides a structured approach to rethinking store operations, outlining where to focus first, how to sequence change, and how to align people, processes, and technology around evolving customer needs. The playbook helps leaders move from reactive fixes to a cohesive operational model that supports flexibility, resilience, and sustained performance.
FOUR KEY B2C COMMERCE IMPERATIVES
Incisiv
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As consumers continue to reshape their expectations,
enterprises must contend with a uniquely challenging landscape.
The consumer technology landscape is forever changing.
From Pinterest to TikTok, WeChat to Instagram, new experiences can rapidly gain consumer adoption and relevance.
From augmented reality to voice, smartwatches to chatbots, consumers are constantly embracing new interaction paradigms.
Commoditized convenience is eroding loyalty and margin.
Consumers expect convenience. If you can't deliver it, they'll go elsewhere - e.g. next day shipping becoming the new standard.
Walmart will reportedly lose USD 1 billion on eCommerce revenue of USD 21 billion this year as it faces challenges in its bid to complete against Amazon – from trouble integrating its DNVB acquisitions to impact on margin from its next-day delivery operations.
Consumers value experiences that are curated to fit their lives better.
They want to engage, be served, and transact at their time, their pace, their place. They have little patience, infinite choice and the freedom to swipe left at the slightest hint of friction.
