Global Retail in Motion
Channel growth is being rewritten by weaker trade expansion, structurally higher living costs, and shoppers who move fluidly across formats with little patience for friction. At 1RetailWorld, Kantar colleagues Rachel Dalton, Head of Retail Insights for North America, and Paida Mugudubi, Head of Retail Insights, join the program to translate those forces into a practical view of where growth concentrates through 2030 and what retailers and brands must do differently to win it.
A New Growth Environment
Global trade sets a tighter ceiling for volume led expansion. Mugudubi cites the World Trade Organization expectation that world merchandise trade grows by only 0.5 percent in 2026, down from an earlier 1.8 percent forecast, and she links the slowdown to demand pulled forward as businesses rushed orders ahead of new tariffs, a shift in spending from goods to services, cautious investment while financing costs remain high, and supply chains that keep rewiring rather than broadly expanding. Growth does not disappear in that scenario, yet it becomes harder to access through legacy playbooks that assume the market will lift all boats.
Inflation adds complexity rather than relief. Easing inflation means prices rise more slowly from a higher base, Mugudubi explains, and many households still carry structurally higher rents, food costs, and energy bills. Retailers therefore compete for a shopper who feels less squeezed than in recent years but still edits baskets, delays discretionary purchases, and demands a credible value exchange at each trip.
Consumer confidence stabilizes without turning into a broad tailwind. Mugudubi points to notable variation by market, with optimism around 40 percent in the United States in the figures shown, compared with the mid twenties in Germany and the United Kingdom and a much lower 16 percent in France. The implication is strategic because channel bets and pricing posture need to reflect how confidence varies across geographies and how quickly demand can respond.
Value And Trust In A Higher Price World
Value becomes a durable habit rather than a temporary crisis response. Mugudubi describes European shopping behavior where a value mindset stays embedded in daily routines, even as inflation pressure eases. That habit changes the basis of competition because shoppers do not reward discounting alone. Shoppers reward retailers that help them stretch budgets, trade smartly within categories, and feel genuine value.
Operational discipline becomes the core of resilience. Mugudubi argues that traditional growth patterns of previous decades are long gone and that success no longer follows scale, history, or standard planning assumptions. Retailers that win recognize that growth is more nuanced, and they execute with discipline that preserves margin while keeping the offer relevant. Discipline also shows up as a fail fast approach with no money to waste, since tight conditions punish slow learning cycles and unfocused investment.
Private label moves from a tactical lever to a strategic capability. Mugudubi describes a shift from private label as a margin tactic toward private label as a strategic muscle that retailers embed in long term plans, including explicit targets for share of food volume. She positions the shift as a structural change in how retailers protect entry price points, build trust, and create reasons to buy that extend beyond price.
Retail media also crosses a maturity threshold. Mugudubi notes that retail media moves beyond the pilot phase and becomes part of core advertiser and retailer strategy, supported by IAB Europe data showing the share of brands working with retail media networks for more than a year rising from 50 percent to 63 percent, and the number working with multiple networks doubling. Retail media increasingly sits at the intersection of data, pricing, availability, and brand investment, which raises the standard for integrated planning.
Channel Economics And Shopper Missions
Channel strategy now demands dual vision. Dalton emphasizes that channels operate with different rules, economics, and shopper missions, and that assortment strategy, innovation, and price pack architecture differ channel by channel. Shoppers, however, behave more holistically, moving in a circular pattern rather than following a single linear path to purchase. That gap between how shoppers move and how channels function creates the new management challenge, since retailers and brands must treat channels uniquely while making the experience coherent across touchpoints.
A large growth pool still exists, and it concentrates in specific engines. Dalton shares Kantar forecasts built twice per year that roll up from banner level to retailer, channel, and market, projecting global retail growth to 2030 of 4.9 percent, moving from about 7.3 trillion dollars to 9.3 trillion dollars. She links the outlook to ecommerce growth, rising smartphone penetration, continued growth in social commerce, communities, and marketplaces, growth in emerging markets driven by a growing middle class, and advanced AI that improves personalization while also raising operational efficiency.
Regional contributions shift as growth accelerates in certain markets. Dalton highlights Latin America and Asia Pacific as leading growth regions, with projected growth around 9.2 percent for Central and South America and around 5.9 percent for Asia Pacific, both sharply higher than the prior five year period she references. North America moderates to about 4.6 percent and Western Europe remains fairly stable around 4.5 percent in the outlook shown, while other regions also show acceleration.
Channel contribution also concentrates. Dalton states that online drives 31 percent of global growth over the next five years, and she stresses that omnichannel integration becomes a baseline requirement because an integrated and consistent connection between physical retail and online activity supports both online growth and total store growth. Supermarkets, hypermarkets, and value formats follow online as large contributors to global growth, which keeps physical scale and store execution central to strategy.
Scale leaders take an outsized share of the prize. Dalton projects that the top ten retailers account for 37 percent of global sales in 2030 and drive 46 percent of growth, with Walmart, Amazon, and Costco remaining the top three, and others on the 2030 leaderboard including JD.com, the Schwartz Group, Aldi, Home Depot, Kroger, Carrefour, and CVS. Concentration at that level raises the importance of partnership strategy and the ability to win in the ecosystems those retailers build.
Europe Rewrites The Playbook
Europe shows how channel models reinvent under pressure. Mugudubi describes supermarkets as the largest European channel, while momentum comes from online and value. Supermarkets face pressure from discounters and reach a point where reinvention becomes necessary, and she explains that pushback comes through meaningful differentiation, AI personalization, and a stronger emphasis on fresh and private label that helps serve a bifurcated shopper base. The strategy protects entry price points while still appealing to premium shoppers, and she frames the opportunity as significant through 2030, including roughly 3.9 percent growth for the channel and an additional 103 billion dollars in revenue to compete for.
Value retail shows a split between maturity and expansion. Mugudubi describes an ultra efficiency model that now needs a rethink for some operators as expansion headroom becomes limited, and she notes that slowed discount expansion gives retailers like Tesco and Sainsbury’s breathing space in some cases. She also highlights pressure in the sector through examples such as B and M share declines. Growth remains strong for operators with headroom, and she points to Action as a fast expanding retailer with more than 3,000 stores across 14 countries, driven by everyday low prices across a wide mix of non food and everyday items, and she points to Eurospin as another fast grower built on deep discount positioning with a strong private label focus that expands beyond Italy.
Online commerce in Europe moves from scale to profitability. Mugudubi describes the pandemic as an inflection point that accelerated digital capability, and she notes that many operators did not make profit on ecommerce, which shifts the agenda from growing sales to making money. She describes a focus on manageable ranges, improved delivery performance, and growth concentrated in quicker trips, top ups, and same day orders where speed and popular items matter. She frames online as the place where media, data, pricing, and availability converge, and she signals that agentic commerce becomes an additional force shaping the category.
Hypermarkets face a mission problem. Mugudubi describes the channel as high volume but lagging in momentum, with shoppers bypassing big box complexity while discounters take the value trip and convenience and online take the quick trip. She points to long walks, slow checkouts, and cluttered assortments as mismatched to mission led shoppers, and she ties the challenge to heavy fixed costs and slow decision making. Carrefour exiting GCC markets becomes an example of a strategic retreat designed to concentrate resources where scale and competitive strength remain, including a renewed focus on France.
Convenience expands through ecosystems rather than single store formats. Mugudubi highlights Zabka as an operator that accelerates growth through on the go and digital solutions, supported by food service and fresh categories that lift baskets and repeat visits while competing with quick service restaurants and cafes. She describes elevated store experience initiatives such as changing layouts, cafe style seating, and localized formats that encourage lingering, and she connects longer dwell time to electric vehicle charge points that keep shoppers in stores longer.
European concentration still matters, even in a fragmented landscape. Mugudubi projects that the top ten European retailers account for 40 percent of sales in 2030 and drive 42 percent of growth. She highlights Amazon as a rising player and emphasizes that European grocers often belong to major international buying groups and participate in national and specialist alliances. Growth planning therefore requires understanding the buying group dynamics that shape negotiation terms and commercial outcomes.
United States Accelerates The Ecosystem Model
The United States outlook shows online leading growth while multiple channels step up to reinvent themselves. Dalton describes a ten channel view where online drives growth with a projected 7.2 percent rate and the largest added volume through 2030. She places supermarkets next, followed by category specialists and mass, and she identifies club as the second fastest growing channel behind online, including Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s.
Amazon anchors the online agenda through technology and fulfillment. Dalton describes Amazon as a technology company first with a robust ecosystem, with AWS at the center and advanced AI tools integrated across the business. Same day delivery becomes a major initiative, and she links it to grocery integration that allows customers to order fresh groceries alongside general merchandise for same day delivery. She describes plans to build new Whole Foods Market stores and more Amazon Fresh stores and to further integrate consumables on Amazon.com. She also highlights shopper tools launched in recent months, including Interest AI, Help Me Decide AI, and Shopping Guides AI, designed to remove friction in discovery and comparison, with parallel benefits for marketplace sellers and advertisers.
Mass retail leans into essentials and personalization. Dalton describes Walmart and Target as the two major mass players, focused on grocery, consumables, and essential products that deliver convenience and low prices. She describes Walmart increasing automation in fulfillment and data to improve efficiency and expanding delivery capabilities, including investment in drone development. Target focuses on relevance and personalization through membership programs including Circle and Circle360, and she highlights Target’s retail media platform Roundell as a lever for engagement and one to one connection with guests.
Supermarkets refocus on internal execution. Dalton notes that the Kroger Albertsons merger does not proceed and that leaders pursue growth through operational discipline, automation, retail media, and private label. She also describes a push toward fewer better stores and rebuilding margins, trust, and experience.
Club retail reinforces its advantage through membership economics and distinct experience. Dalton emphasizes price points that remain hard to beat and membership programs that sustain the model, paired with curated margin scaled through digital and private label. She describes Kirkland Signature as a passion brand inside Costco and ties it to the treasure hunt experience. Sam’s Club sustains momentum through digital investment and leveraging Walmart AI capabilities for efficiency, and she describes member collaboration that brings shoppers into product innovation and uses member ratings to determine what earns shelf space.
Value retail becomes a disciplined store strategy. Dalton describes Dollar General optimizing its real estate footprint in rural America with more than 4,700 real estate projects in 2026, including 450 planned new store openings and thousands of remodels, supported by personalization and closer customer connections. Dollar Tree pushes a multi price model while tightening operations. Aldi accelerates physical and digital upgrades and continues new store builds, and Lidl deepens its Mid Atlantic and Northeast footprint while she flags changes expected under new leadership.
Concentration is even higher in the United States. Dalton projects that the top ten retailers reach about 62 percent of US retail sales by 2030 and drive 73 percent of growth, spanning mass, online, club, home improvement, grocery, and drug. She summarizes three market takeaways that emphasize online leadership, omnichannel consistency between digital and physical formats, and the importance of experience and operational discipline with sharp execution, supported by strong digital ecosystems, efficient supply chains, and mission focused propositions.
The New Mechanics Of Channel Growth
Growth becomes less predictable when trade slows, prices stay structurally higher, and shoppers change missions quickly. Mugudubi argues that the old patterns tied to scale and history lose predictive power, and she frames advantage as the ability to sense and act fast. Dalton reinforces that channel by channel differences still matter, and that winning requires retailer specific plans that optimize assortment, pricing, product, innovation, and promotions inside each channel’s economics.
Operational discipline and store experience emerge as the shared battleground across markets. The strongest strategies link value credibility to execution quality, treat space as an investment measured in profitability per square foot, and build omnichannel integration that removes friction rather than adding complexity. Dalton and Mugudubi close by inviting continued engagement through retailIQ.cantar.com and direct outreach, positioning the session as a practical blueprint for building growth plans that remain durable beyond the current cycle.
