Retail’s Incremental Total Experience Shift: Select Brands See Significant Improvement

Why It Matters

The modest uplift underscores that retail success now hinges on solid fundamentals and employee experience rather than flashy technology, shaping how brands allocate resources to win and retain shoppers.

Key Takeaways

• Average Total Experience Score 59.1, still below other industries.
• Leading quadrant grew to 11 retailers, up from nine.
• Chewy tops score at 65.5, followed by Costco, Walmart, Kroger.
• Product assortment and quality remain top CX and BX drivers.
• Employee experience added to score, boosting top retailers.

Pulse Analysis

Forrester’s Total Experience Score blends customer experience (CX), brand experience (BX) and, for the first time in 2026, employee experience (EX) into a single metric that gauges how well retailers win and serve shoppers. The latest assessment of 41 U.S. retailers shows an average of 59.1, a figure that trails most other industries, but the industry did edge up by 0.4 points from the previous year. This incremental gain reflects a broader shift: retailers are beginning to close gaps in service delivery, yet the overall landscape remains fragmented, with only a handful of firms achieving leading status.

The report highlights that the strongest performers excel on basic fundamentals—offering the right products, keeping them in stock, and maintaining high quality. Those factors topped both CX and BX driver rankings, reinforcing the notion that sophisticated technology cannot substitute for a solid product assortment. Brands such as Chewy, Costco, Walmart and Kroger improved their scores by tightening inventory controls and enhancing product relevance, pushing them into the leading quadrant that now contains 11 retailers. The addition of EX to the scoring model further differentiates winners, as three of the top five firms leveraged better tools, leadership and employee enablement to deliver consistent customer experiences.

For retail executives, the findings suggest a pragmatic roadmap: prioritize alignment across CX, BX and EX initiatives, invest in employee enablement, and focus on consistency across channels. Rather than chasing every new tech trend, firms should shore up inventory accuracy, product quality and staff training to lift the Total Experience Score. Investors and analysts will likely watch these fundamentals closely, as they increasingly correlate with revenue growth and customer loyalty in a competitive market.