Retail’s 2026 Tech Tipping Point

As retailers embark connected 2026, the manufacture is collectively facing a convergence of regulatory pressures, operational innovation outlooks and user expectations.

Seattle-based RFID exertion supplier Impinj predicts that 2026 volition beryllium pivotal for integer merchandise transparency, proviso concatenation integrity and tech-driven operational efficiency.

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“With the EU’s impending deadlines for textiles and tires successful 2027, retailers volition nary longer beryllium successful wait-and-see mode—they’re locking successful their plans not lone to guarantee compliance, but besides to guarantee their investments present thrust broader operational benefits,” said Megan Brewster, vice president of precocious exertion astatine Impinj.

According to the erstwhile White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) elder advisor, the 2026 tech investments retailers should ticker are those focused connected embedded tagging, item-level traceability and proviso concatenation intelligence.

“After years of choosing betwixt durability and affordability, advances successful tagging exertion successful caller years mean brands tin yet instrumentality tagging strategies that present both,” Brewster said. “For apparel and different high-volume categories, embedded tagging volition go the caller standard, enabling visibility done the item’s lifecycle, smoother returns, easier recycling and aboriginal readiness for DPP requirements.”

That’s due to the fact that counterfeiting and fraud person reached a tipping point, per Brewster, arsenic U.S. consumers turn much aware—and vocal—around phony products oregon dishonest deliveries.

“With galore shipments lacking basal hygiene similar beforehand shipping notices, brands often don’t cognize precisely what arrived, erstwhile oregon from who,” Brewster said. “That fragmentation creates cleanable introduction points for counterfeit goods and fraudulent relabeling.”

While legislative momentum, similar the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2025, has highlighted the urgency of item-level traceability, technological developments tin springiness retailers the visibility needed to spot (and prevent) fraud. Such technologies, she continued, tin amended inventory accuracy, enactment returns and recycling, and future-proof operations for regulatory compliance.

“Interestingly, the CORCA Act is gaining uncommon bipartisan momentum arsenic organized retail transgression and counterfeiting summation nationalist attention,” Brewster said, noting that retailers person been battling progressively complex, multistep proviso chains—plus a “sprawling ecosystem” of 3PL and e-commerce logistics partners; policymakers are anxious for proven, wide deployed technology.