Skip to content
‹ Back to IndustriesRetail

The Experience Evolution: Prep the Halls—2021 Holiday Shopping Trends and Tips

Did the pandemic rewrite the rules for the holiday shopping season? Is there even a rulebook anymore? As consumers look to engage with their favorite brands across all channels this upcoming holiday season, retailers will need to find ways to bridge the gap between in-person and online to provide seamless experiences. John Federman, CEO…

This story was produced through MarketScale. See how Retail teams put it to work with Sales Enablement.

·
Share
The Experience Evolution: Prep the Halls—2021 Holiday Shopping Trends and Tips

Free workspace

Turn your Retail expertise into content.

Record interviews, organize footage, and write with AI on a free trial of the MarketScale platform for qualifying companies. No demo required, no credit card.

Try it Free

Did the pandemic rewrite the rules for the holiday shopping season? Is there even a rulebook anymore? As consumers look to engage with their favorite brands across all channels this upcoming holiday season, retailers will need to find ways to bridge the gap between in-person and online to provide seamless experiences. John Federman, CEO of JRNI, and Adam Percival, National Sales Leader at luxury menswear retailer, Harry Rosen, broke down the recent trends they believe will impact the upcoming holiday shopping season and provide tips for success for retailers.

One behavioral carry-over from last year is people’s need to engage on a personal level, Federman said. “They want to celebrate the holidays, but they want to do so safely. What’s different from last year is everyone feels a little like a veteran. They feel they know the ways to comfortably and safely get accomplished what they need to get accomplished.” Boiled down: people are ready to shop this holiday season, but they will do so in a safe manner. The retailers that can provide a safe environmentwill come out on top.

From Harry Rosen’s perspective, Percival said they’d worked hard to develop new strategies for creating a unique shopping experience during the pandemic, and this will be crucial during the holiday shopping season as well. “We see the trend of online shopping continue. Consumers want to shop when and where it’s convenient to them. I do see the appointment business continue to be very strong. People want to shop either at home or in their office, or online. For us, it’s going to be about these personalized, or private, appointments for customers.”

Federman stressed that the holiday shopping landscape isn’t one format over another. A customer’s journey may start online, but it can, and often does, end in a physical store. But the time spent in a store may be different from the shopping experience of the past. “People want to make the time spent in the physical as focused and as ultimately productive as it can be.”

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Twitter – @MarketScale

Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale

LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

Your experts belong here

Every story in MarketScale Retail starts with a company putting its merchandising leads, store operations teams, and category managers on the record. Buyers are already reading this topic. The only question is whose experts they find.

Category buyers trust operators, so your merchandising leads shorten the distance between first search and first call.

Book DemoSee how it works15 minutes, straight to a calendar.
B2B Weekly

The week in Retail, and sixteen other industries, every Monday.

Ten stories, one-line takes, five minutes. Free.

Retail: are you visible to AI?

Before they reach out, Retail buyers ask AI engines which vendors to trust. Explore how your experts, customers, and partners can become useful content for buyers and AI search.

Free Trial

You just read one Retail expert. Your company is full of them.

This article was produced through MarketScale. The same platform turns your merchandising leads, store operations teams, and category managers into the articles, video, and social content Retail buyers are searching for. Start a free trial and see it with your own people. For qualifying companies, no credit card, no demo required.

NPS +73 · 1,000+ creators · 38+ countries

What your free trial includes

Hands-on access to the MarketScale platform
Media requests to your crowd, remote recording, AI writing tools
No demo required. No credit card.
For qualifying companies. Company confirmation required.

More Retail Insights

Arko CEO says remodeled stores are generating low double-digit sales growth

Arko CEO says remodeled stores are generating low double-digit sales growth

Arko Corp. Chairman, President and CEO Arie Kotler said that, based on initial results, remodeled stores are generating low double-digit sales growth. Eleven remodels were completed through the third quarter, and Arko expects to finish more than 25 by the end of 2026. In Q3 2026, in-store promotional spending rose about 16% while merchandise margin reached 34.8%. Arko is shifting its focus and capital toward its core portfolio of company-operated stores.

  • 01Arko raised in-store promotional spending about 16% in Q3 2026 and still widened merchandise margin 110 basis points to 34.8%, its 12th straight year-over-year gain.
  • 02Early fas craves remodels are generating low double-digit sales growth, but on only 11 stores; the retained portfolio as a whole grew merchandise sales about 0.8% excluding cigarettes, so the lift has yet to reach the totals.
  • 03The number to watch is retained-store merchandise growth as the remodel count passes 25: if it climbs, the food-led format is scaling; if it stays near 1%, the early results came from a small sample.

Nov 8, 2026

Ulta is marketing to AI agents and shoppers

Ulta is marketing to AI agents and shoppers

Ulta segments customers by motivations (not just demographics) and uses non-purchase signals like social activity and store behavior to inform personalization and messaging.

  • 01Ulta treats AI agents as new voices it cannot control, similar to how it manages influencer and store associate recommendations, shaping what agents know rather than what they say.
  • 02Ulta uses motivation-based segmentation and non-purchase signals to drive personalization, built on loyalty data, while it works out what AI agents need.
  • 03Ulta says research shows young consumers who use AI tools and chatbots still crave coming into stores and are more likely to visit, raising the pressure on stores to earn the trip.

Nov 7, 2026

Amazon lets shoppers text Alexa for Shopping to place orders and track prices

Amazon lets shoppers text Alexa for Shopping to place orders and track prices

Amazon is rolling out text-message access to Alexa for Shopping, its AI shopping agent, starting with a small group of U.S. customers by invitation. The agent can search, compare, buy items, track prices, reorder products, and send alerts across text and other Amazon platforms.

  • 01Texting with Alexa for Shopping rolls out to a small group of U.S. customers by invitation, expanding to millions in the coming weeks
  • 02The agent can reorder items, set up weekly grocery orders, watch for price drops, show up to a year of price history, and send new-release alerts
  • 03Requests started over text carry over to the Amazon Shopping app, Amazon.com, and Alexa-enabled devices

Nov 6, 2026

Explore More Retail Insights

Read more expert perspectives from across Retail.

Browse Retail Hub

For B2B teams

Your experts could be publishing here

Stories like this one run on content MarketScale captures from real practitioners. See how your team's expertise becomes coverage in Retail and beyond.

Book a Demo

Or call us. No forms required. We pick up. 214-945-2512