Retail Fest brought together leaders across ecommerce, retail, customer experience, marketplaces, payments, and AI in retail to discuss the strategies shaping the future of commerce.
As a proud platinum sponsor, the Maropost team had the opportunity to connect with retailers, industry leaders, and ecommerce innovators across a wide range of sessions and conversations throughout the event.
From AI adoption and unified commerce to customer retention and operational efficiency, the conversations this year focused on how modern retailers can drive sustainable growth in an increasingly competitive market.
Across the event, one theme consistently rose above the noise:
Retailers are moving beyond experimentation and focusing on practical execution that drives measurable growth.
Here are five of the biggest takeaways from this year’s event.
One of the clearest shifts at Retail Fest this year was the maturity of AI conversations.
Retailers are no longer asking: “Should we use AI?”
They’re asking: “Where does AI create measurable ROI inside our business?”
Across multiple panels and sessions, speakers emphasised that successful AI adoption starts with practical use cases:
The strongest retailers are embedding AI into existing workflows rather than treating it as a standalone innovation project.
The message was clear: retailers that operationalise AI effectively will gain efficiency advantages long before competitors catch up.
Retailers that combine AI with strong merchandising and product discovery strategies are likely to see the greatest long-term impact.
As acquisition costs continue to rise, retailers are shifting focus toward maximising customer lifetime value.
Several sessions explored how retailers can generate more revenue from existing customers through:
A recurring theme was that growth today is less about “more traffic” and more about extracting greater value from every customer interaction.
Speakers highlighted that even small improvements in conversion rate, repeat purchase frequency, or average order value can dramatically improve profitability without increasing acquisition spend.
Panels featuring leaders from businesses including PayPal and Hooked Online reinforced how reducing friction throughout the customer journey can significantly improve conversion and long-term retention outcomes.
Read the Hooked Online success story
Community, storytelling, and customer connection were major talking points throughout the event.
Consumers increasingly buy from retailers they feel emotionally connected to — not simply the cheapest option.
One standout example came from the “Scaling to 100 Stores: The World Gym Australia Growth Story” session featuring World Gym CEO Roger Westerman and Gordana Redzovski, APAC Managing Director & Interim CRO at Maropost, where the conversation focused on how strong community and consistent customer experiences have helped fuel long-term growth.
This year marks 50 years of the World Gym business globally and 20 years in Australia.
Roger described the significance of sustaining relevance over decades, noting that longevity itself is evidence of strong foundations, leadership, and customer connection.
The session also revealed the scale of World Gym’s retail operation:
That places the business among the top retail performers in the fitness sector globally.
The broader lesson for retailers was clear: strong communities create stronger commercial outcomes.
The retailers winning today are creating ecosystems around customer engagement, loyalty, merchandise, and experience — not simply transactional storefronts.
Retailers continue to navigate growing complexity across:
Throughout the event, speakers repeatedly highlighted the importance of being able to adapt quickly to changing customer expectations and market conditions.
The retailers seeing the strongest growth are typically:
Operational agility is no longer just an efficiency play — it’s becoming a meaningful competitive advantage.
Many sessions focused on the importance of connected systems and unified customer data.
Retailers continue to face increasing operational fragmentation across:
The businesses seeing the best outcomes are removing silos between teams and channels to create more seamless customer experiences.
The future of retail increasingly depends on delivering consistency regardless of where customers interact with the business.
Retail Fest 2026 reinforced that modern retail success is no longer driven by isolated tactics.
Winning retailers are combining:
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the event was this:
The future belongs to retailers who can execute consistently, adapt quickly, and create meaningful customer relationships at scale.