NEW YORK – JULY 8, 2026 – Trustpilot, the world’s largest open feedback platform, today released “The Future of U.S. Retail: Trust, Returns, AI and the New Consumer,” a new report revealing how consumer values are reshaping retail in 2026.
With access to one of the most comprehensive datasets of real customer sentiment available anywhere, Trustpilot analyzed more than 4.5 million U.S. shopper reviews over 12 months in 2025 and found the following defining retail trends: a growing divide between premium and price-led retail, consumer friction with AI-powered experiences, the influence of returns on brand loyalty, and rising expectations around transparency. Using Trustpilot’s proprietary sentence-level sentiment model, the data shows consumers are prioritizing quality, engaging with AI on their own terms, and holding brands to high standards.
Top Insights From Report:
- Quiet luxury is in: High-end retail is surging, with global review volume up nearly 48% from 2023 to 2025, driven by Millennials and Gen Z prioritizing quality, durability, and sustainability over fast fashion.
- Marketplaces are losing trust: Review volume shows that marketplace models are losing ground, as concerns over quality, counterfeits, and inconsistent service push consumers toward direct-to-brand experiences.
- Creating conversation matters: Cultural moments drive sharp spikes in engagement, with campaigns like the July 2025 Sydney Sweeney partnership fueling a +199.61% increase in jeans review activity during peak retail periods.
- Consumers are divided on AI: AI excels in discovery but creates friction in the post-purchase experience. Over-reliance on AI for curation is eroding perceived brand quality, as consumers report generic, repetitive recommendations.
- Returns are a missed opportunity to build trust: Mentions of returns correlate with a −1.69 star drop in U.S. reviews—the steepest decline across all topics. Fast, seamless exchanges (such as for sizing) generate positive sentiment, while delayed refunds and restocking fees drive strong dissatisfaction.
- The cost of social hype: In the US, reviews that mention peer influence carry an average star rating of approximately 2.0 stars – lower than the ~3.0 average for reviews that do not.
- Loyalty dictates revenue: Reviews containing positive loyalty keywords carry an average star rating nearly 3x higher than those expressing negative loyalty intent.
“Consumers are giving retailers a clear mandate in 2026: use AI to help us discover and decide between products, but give us humans when we need support,” said Taylor Cunningham, Vice President of US Marketing at Trustpilot. ” When expectations aren’t met, shoppers don’t just complain, they leave. Our analysis of over 4.5 million retail industry reviews confirms that customer loyalty depends on if a brand can eliminate friction with tech, and address customer concerns with a human touch.”
Top Actionable Takeaways From Reviews:
1. Redesign the returns experience: Treat returns as a loyalty tool and a revenue opportunity. Eliminate restocking fees for company errors, guarantee refunds to original payment methods within five business days, and invest in seamless exchange processes. January retains 82% of December’s review volume – driven by the post-holiday returns and feedback cycle. That means retailers also need to focus on adequately staffing customer service departments and proactively communicating with customers during this period. This can pay off in the form of positive reviews, to be referenced by consumers, for the remainder of the year.
2. Deploy AI for discovery, not for support: AI excels at pre-purchase discovery and visualization, so invest in smart search, virtual try-on, and contextual recommendation. Ensure that AI interactions in after-purchase, where it’s less popular, have a clear, low-friction escalation path to a human agent within a small number of clicks/messages.
3. Invest in the high-end segment: Consider how to position quality, durability, and craftsmanship – even within mid-market categories – to capture the consumer shift away from fast fashion. By intentionally elevating specific product tiers, offering extended wear warranties, or being transparent about material sourcing, value-focused brands can capture the “quiet luxury” mindset.
4. Fix technology issues: Discount and promotional code failures are a disproportionate source of brand damage. Leaders should invest in robust checkout technology that reliably applies promotional codes – particularly during high-traffic sale periods.
To read the full report and learn more about the retail industry, please visit: https://business.trustpilot.com/marketing/navigating-ai-trust-retail
Methodology
Insights are drawn from Trustpilot’s proprietary dataset of over 4.5 million consumer reviews written by U.S. consumers for retail businesses in 2025. Research was conducted in February 2026 utilizing TrustScores, Review Volume, and a specialized, multilingual AI sentiment model that evaluates feedback sentence-by-sentence to capture the exact emotional drivers behind customer feedback, rather than relying on a singular overall score.
About Trustpilot
Trustpilot began in 2007 with a simple yet powerful idea that is more relevant today than ever — to be the universal symbol of trust, bringing consumers and businesses together through reviews. Trustpilot is open, independent, and impartial — we help consumers make the right choices and businesses to build trust, grow and improve.
Today, we have more than 361 million reviews and 64 million monthly active users across the globe, with 149 billion annual TrustBox impressions, and the numbers keep growing. We have over 1,000 employees and we’re headquartered in Copenhagen, with operations in Amsterdam, Denver, Edinburgh, Hamburg, London, Melbourne, Milan and New York. Visit www.trustpilot.com.