INDUSTRY COMMENT: FAIRE
HOW INDEPENDENT RETAILERS WILL SHAPE THE HIGH STREET IN 2026
By Charlotte Broadbent, UK general manager at Faire, the wholesale platform that helps retailers discover unique brands and products to stock in their stores.
O
ne of the things I love most about working with independent retailers is their resilience and adaptability. They
have weathered everything the world has thrown at them over the past few years, including shifting consumer behaviours, economic pressures, rising costs, and the arrival of new technologies. Yet they have kept innovating, kept experimenting, and kept their communities at the heart of everything they do.
None of this will disappear in 2026. But how shopkeepers respond to these changes will shape the year ahead more than anything else. Here are the trends I believe will have a meaningful impact in 2026, and how the best independents will use them in their favour.
Livestream shopping will become the new shop window The rise of livestream shopping is impossible to ignore. TikTok Shop has just reported its strongest UK performance yet with live-shopping sales up 68%, over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. Meanwhile Whatnot has expanded beyond its roots in Pokémon cards and collectibles, to fashion and beauty, and saw UK sales rise more than 400 per cent.
What I love about this is how naturally it plays into the strengths of independent retailers. Indies are already brilliant at storytelling, curating original products, and building real relationships with their customers. Many are also far more comfortable than they used to be stepping in front of a camera on social media, because they’ve seen how this brings their shops and their personalities to life. Livestream shopping is simply the next evolution of that. It gives retailers full control over when and how they sell, offers a low- cost alternative to paid ads, and
20 DIY WEEK DECEMBER 2025
appeal to all five senses. After all, retail is emotional, and sight is only one part of the story.
Shoppers want to feel something when they walk into a store, and that sense of welcome, warmth or excitement is shaped by elements they may not consciously notice. A particular scent, playlist,
textures and even the temperature of the shop. It often begins with one simple question: how do I want my customers to feel when they come in and when they leave? Independent retailers are perfectly placed to embrace this. They can rotate scents seasonally, curate playlists that anchor their brand personality, and design displays that invite customers to slow down and explore. The barrier to entry is low, but the opportunity is high. Research shows that a third of our memory of a brand experience comes from smell alone, making fragrance potentially more powerful at influencing behaviour than loyalty cards, adverts or even discounts.
AI will change how customers find products
Artificial intelligence (AI) is quietly reshaping how customers discover products. Instead of looking for specific items themselves online, people are getting help from chatbots like ChatGPT on what and where to buy.
transforms quieter shop floor moments into opportunities for new connections and sales.
I don’t expect every independent
retailer to embrace livestreaming overnight. But I do think many more will begin experimenting with it in 2026 as a way to top up sales and increase engagement. The ones who do it best will treat it as an extension of their shop window.
Retailers will create more shopping seasons Key retail moments like Easter, Halloween, Valentine’s Day are all shifting from single days to extended seasons, filled with decorating, gifting and hosting, and independent retailers have been busy responding.
This year we saw cosy autumnal and Halloween homeware appear on shelves from August, alongside a 150 per cent rise in small shops ordering Halloween advent calendars from Faire, the first year this product has really landed in the UK.
I expect this trend to accelerate in 2026, particularly with the World Cup on the horizon. Shoppers will not only be celebrating England and Scotland’s progress, but also the cultures of the host nations of Canada, Mexico and the UK. The best retailers will continue to lean into this seasonality with smaller, lower-cost items that match the mood of their shoppers and can be quickly reordered if demand spikes. Retailers big and small will have been studying next year’s calendar to understand how they make the most of key dates but national chains need to plan many months ahead. Independent retailers can be far more agile by testing quirky seasonal products in real time and riding the wave of new trends as they break.
Indie retailers will be looking to engage all five senses
Beautiful displays will always matter but I’m starting to see something deeper as shops intentionally
This shift means retailers will need to think less about traditional SEO and more about ‘AEO’ and how their shop and products are being interpreted and discovered by AI. Indie retailers do not need to become technical experts, but they do need to be clear in how they describe their businesses, what they sell, and what makes them distinctive.
At the same time, the rise of AI is making the human elements of retail that robots cannot replicate more important than ever. Customers can instantly sense when something feels automated and are being increasingly turned off by ‘AI slop’. I believe more people will seek out warmth, personality, and the emotional connection as a result, and these are things that independent shops already offer in abundance.
The independents who thrive will be the ones who let AI handle the background tasks that save time, while keeping their creativity, voice and identity front and centre.
• Visit
www.faire.com/en-gb to learn more.
www.diyweek.net
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