With another year of volatility across the fashion, luxury, beauty and retail industries and a continuously spend-cautious consumer, Listrak has released its 2026 Beauty and Fashion Benchmarks report with predictions of what’s to come in the year ahead.
The data from the report is based on 130 billion emails and SMS/MMS messages sent from 1,000 of its e-commerce clients between January and December 2025. The report’s data and its analysis were conducted by Listrak Intelligence, using AI-powered insights with industry-specific expert analysis.
Listrak’s four major predictions for 2026 are:
- Artificial intelligence is reshaping e-commerce. The report’s authors foresee brands making sure their websites will include AI agents, have question-based content and will integrate directly into their platforms and allow for API based purchases. This gives way to conversational commerce and consumers purchasing without ever looking at a retailer’s website.
- The end of free shipping and free returns. With margins shrinking due to tariffs and 16 percent of retailers’ sales returned in 2025, the era of free shipping and returns could be over. With brands no longer able to give these benefits away for free, they will start offering these to paying and loyal consumers.
- Human connection matters more than ever. As AI automation continues to be a major player, continuing the human touch with customers is paramount. Brands will craft more personalized touch points and in-store experiences.
- VIP personalization is critical. With the top 10 percent of earners accounting for 50 percent of the GDP, targeting them is critical. As this group of consumers is not pulling back on expenditures, innovation will be a major player with them.
In beauty, the trends Listrak sees include wellness and beauty merging, non-traditional beauty brands entering the stage, Generation Z and Gen Alpha deepening their brand influence, making beauty personal with AI and men’s beauty evolving.
With beauty focused on both the inside and outside, bigger beauty players are now investing in wellness as part of the overall beauty routine. Large retailers are also noticing the boom and benefits of beauty — most recently, Gap and Old Navy have launched their own beauty brands to capitalize on the sector’s growth. Younger consumers are demanding that brands provide clean, inclusive and sustainable products and refocusing priorities. With larger beauty brands focusing on the growing interest from men, new maintenance and hygiene products will be launched as men start creating a proper routine.
Moreover, the digital world is growing and is bigger than ever before. Online and social channels now account for approximately 50 percent of global beauty sales — which reinforces sustained growth and digital-first consumer behavior.
In fashion, Listrak said the biggest industry trends see the luxury and discount market gap widening, larger brands investing in their own creator platforms, the secondhand market being a major player, GLP-1s reshaping inventory and luxury centering on craftsmanship.
While 10 percent of earners are driving spend growth in luxury, brands are widening their assortments and increasing their promotional strategies to also retain value-focused buyers. Major companies such as Sephora and Gap are launching their own creator platforms in recognition of the fact that Gen Z is discovering, engaging with and purchasing fashion through creator ecosystems.
And with 12.4 percent of Americans now using GLP-1 medications, apparel retailers are having to adjust and allocate their sizing and inventory to reflect this change.
With luxury sales slowing down and dupe culture ramping up, brands are focusing on creativity, newness and craftsmanship to reengage consumers’ trust and justify premium pricing.
“The brands that are winning in beauty and fashion aren’t sending more — they’re sending smarter, leveraging high-intent moments with personalization and relevancy. As a strategic partner to many of the world’s leading beauty and fashion marketers, Listrak is focused on delivering actionable strategies that deliver meaningful results and the 2026 Beauty & Fashion Benchmarks report is a key resource for data-driven optimizations to power success in the year ahead,” said Ross Kramer, cofounder and chief executive officer at Listrak.
