As we approach the USA Holiday of Thanksgiving where there will lots of leftovers, it is time to revisit and summarize some key data driven retail trends from this year that were left behind. Although we are looking backwards into the year, these trends are actually critical for the setup into a successful new year.
2025 to date continues to be a transformational year for the retail industry. Artificial intelligence continues its march to disrupt all industries including retail. Tariffs brought new headwinds impacting consumer confidence. The physical store continues to grow in importance in an omnichannel shopping world. Retail media and social commerce are increasing their retail industry presence. Change remains the new normal.
In this article, we summarize the latest list of the world's largest retailers, including who is winning or losing in the global expansion wars. We next assess the technologies being prioritized to improve the profitability of the physical store and the latest retail crime trends. Finally, we close with Gartner's latest hype cycle of retail technologies.
The World's Largest and Fastest Growing Retailers
Every year Deloitte publishes one of my favorite industry reports analyzing the top 250 global retailers. Highly recommend you read the global retail economic outlook written by Dr. Ira Kalish.
As above summarizes, no change in the latest report in the ranking of the Top 6 global retailers with Walmart remaining at Number 1 followed by Amazon and Costco. Aldi rose two spots in the top 10 rankings while JD.com and Walgreens Boots both dropped one. This year, Target completely fell out from the top 10.
CVS Health had the highest revenue growth followed by Schwarz Group (Lidl) and Aldi. The highest international diversified company is the Schwarz Group which operates in 32 countries, followed by Amazon (23 countries). Note the high revenue percentages generated by both the Schwarz Group and Aldi outside their home country.
The Top 10 Global Retailers generate nearly 35% of the total revenue from the top 250 world retailers. The top 10 on average also generated higher revenue outside their home countries and had higher revenue growth than their peers in the top 250.
Geographically, North America dominated the top 250 retail companies with nearly 50% of the total revenue followed by Europe at nearly 34%. Eighty-nine of the top 250 retailers have their headquarters in Europe, compared to 85 from North America.
Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) represent the highest revenue concentration of the global top 250 retailers at 65.5%, followed Hardlines and Leisure Goods at 19%. The most profitable sector is Apparel and Accessories at 9.8% net profit margin, compared to FMCG which only has a margin of 1.8%.
The Top 5 fastest Growing Global Retailers in the top 250 are Shein (China with growth of 88%), Sol Marketler (Turkey, 62%), BIM Birlesik Magazalar (Turkey, 59%), Migros Ticaret (Turkey, 57%), and Coupang (South Korea, 41%). Notably, three out of the top five fastest-growing companies are FMCG companies.
The 2025 Top Retail Technology Priorities
Earlier this year, Chain Store Age published the latest "Store Experience Study" which summarizes store trends in both operations and technology. This year's research confirms once again that stores are not going away and being replaced by e-commerce. Eighty-five percent of all retail transactions have a store component associated with them. As Chain Store Age stated, "we expect the numbers for the respective customer journeys to change with time. But we don’t see a radical departure from stores remaining at the center of retail."
The 2025 top 3 technology priorities are inventory visibility, personalizing the customer experience, and upgrading CRMs.
Inventory visibility is critical in an omnichannel retail world where stores are increasingly the fulfillment center. Focusing on customers by personalizing experiences and upgrading CRMs are becoming much more critical to keep the attention of digital savvy fickle consumers.
Unsurprisingly, RFID has found its niche in delivering inventory visibility with 45% of GMS retailers having now deployed it. Retail industry leaders (those growing 10% or more previous year) are 158 times more likely to be using RFID than laggards. Note the growth of retail media networks and the above average sales growth from above emerging technologies.
USA Retail Crime Remains Challenging
According to David Johnston, Vice President of Asset Protection & Retail Operations for the National Retail Federation (NRF), "retail theft continues at high levels, while violence, often associated with theft or criminal activity, remains of great concern to the retail industry. The evolving crisis of organized retail crime has expanded in its breadth, both in methods and overall reach. Collectively, these issues continue to present a significant threat to the retail industry, the U.S. economy and public safety."
The latest NRF Security Survey finds a 19% increase in external shoplifting and merchandise theft incidents. Retailers say they are most concerned about organized retail crime, shoplifting, repeat offenders, phone scams, return fraud, and credit card related theft.
"Retailers report the same or higher instances of violence-related events in their organizations in 2024. Top concerns include violence during a crime, mass violence and guest-related violence. Almost half of respondents (46%) saw increases in guest related violence and violence during a crime (including shoplifting)."
For the first six months of 2025, D&D Daily reported that the USA retail industry experienced 306 fatalities, up 25% from the previous year six months. Fifty-nine percent of those killed were customers, followed by 20% which were store associates. Convenience Stores were the most dangerous format and parking lots across all retailers had 53% of the fatalities.
Technology remains at the top of the list to combat retail crime. Note the above list from the NRF Survey on the number of retailers researching or operationalizing new emerging technologies in combatting retail crime. Greatest focus in on AI-capable analytics, suspicious video detection, AI fraud detection, and RFID.
The 2025 Hottest Retail Technologies
Every year Gartner publishes a hype cycle for retail technologies.
The hottest technologies in the slope of enlightenment headed to the plateau of productivity are IoT-based store monitoring, computer vision, retail assortment management applications, item-level RFID in the store, and AI in retail. Agree these technologies are on their way to commercial success in the retail industry.
As the IHL Services Group reported, artificial intelligence will have a $9.2 trillion economic impact on the retail industry through 2029. Note also their research on the impact of RFID on the retailers' profits, and the expected astronomical adoption rate for computer vision through 2027.
Happy Thanksgiving
Although Thanksgiving is a major holiday in the United States, typically kicking off the retail shopping season, similar holidays are celebrated in multiple other countries. Canada has a Thanksgiving Day in October with roots in harvest festivals. Other countries having similar harvest thanksgiving celebrations include Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, some cities in the Netherlands, and South Korea.
My appreciation and gratitude to all of you that have joined me on the continuous learning journey. Enjoy these leftovers retail innovation leadership ideas for an even better new year. Happy Thanksgiving and let's go have another successful retail holiday shopping season.
