Ecommerce is entering 2027 with a very different set of priorities from just a few years ago.
AI is moving from experimentation into everyday retail. Automation is being introduced across warehouses and fulfilment operations. Physical stores are becoming part of digital fulfilment networks, while retailers are bringing customer data together to create more relevant experiences.
At the same time, shoppers are changing how they discover products. Search engines are no longer the only route to a purchase, with AI assistants, social platforms and other digital channels increasingly influencing what people buy.
For retailers and agencies, the challenge is not to chase every new technology. It is to understand where ecommerce is heading and build experiences and infrastructure that can adapt with it.
Here are six ecommerce trends worth watching in 2027.
AI moves from experimentation to everyday ecommerce
AI has moved quickly from an emerging technology to something retailers are actively investing in.
Adyen's 2026 Retail Report found that 50% of UK retailers plan to increase their AI investment over the next year. Meanwhile, 84% are open to enabling AI to complete purchases on behalf of consumers, with 49% considering it a top strategic priority.
Consumer adoption is growing too. Adyen found that the proportion of UK shoppers using AI assistants for shopping had more than doubled year-on-year, from 12% to almost 28%.
By August 2026, Adobe's UK digital spending research found that referral traffic from AI platforms had increased by 1,439% compared with October 2024. More significantly, AI-referred traffic had a conversion rate 20% higher than non-AI referred traffic.
The numbers suggest that AI is becoming more than a tool for experimentation. Consumers are already using it to compare products, find deals, evaluate options and narrow down what they want to buy.
From AI assistants to AI shopping
John Lewis is one UK retailer already investing heavily in this shift.
In March 2026, the retailer announced an investment in AI-powered shopping that will make its products discoverable through platforms including Google Gemini and ChatGPT. The longer-term ambition is for customers to be able to transact through these third-party AI platforms.
This changes the role of an ecommerce website.
A retailer's product information increasingly needs to work not only for a customer browsing its own website, but also for the systems that may discover, compare and recommend products on its behalf.
For retailers and agencies, this makes structured product information, flexible APIs and a platform that can connect to new services increasingly important.
AI needs the right foundations
AI also creates an important question around automation: what should be automated, and what should remain under human control?
Adyen found that UK retailers see data security and system integration as important considerations when adopting AI shopping technology.
The retailers that benefit most from AI are unlikely to be those that simply add an AI feature to their website. They will be the ones that have the underlying product, customer, stock and order data needed to make those systems useful.
Automation moves beyond the storefront
AI isn't the only form of automation changing ecommerce.
Retailers are increasingly investing in automation across warehouses, fulfilment and order processing as they look to handle more orders and diversify their offerings, without slowing down their operations or strain their workforce with inefficient manual processes.
Wayland Games, a UK tabletop retailer, provides a useful example. The retailer introduced 42 autonomous mobile robots into its 50,000 sq ft warehouse in Essex. According to the project report, packing speed increased by 89%, while order processing time fell by 68%.
Automation at scale
Footasylum is taking a similar approach at a much larger scale.
The retailer is deploying 85 AutoStore robots across more than 96,000 bin locations, with its entire live SKU range intended to be stored within the automated grid. The project is being delivered through THG Fulfil and was targeted for first-order go-live in September 2026.
George at Asda is also investing in automated fulfilment. DHL is transforming a Derby facility into a new ecommerce fulfilment centre scheduled to go live in 2027. It will use AutoStore goods-to-person technology and pocket-sorter technology, with the capacity to process up to 350,000 units per day and target order turnaround times of around 30 minutes.
These investments point towards a wider trend: ecommerce operations are becoming increasingly automated because retailers need to handle greater complexity, product ranges and order volumes while maintaining speed and efficiency.
For agencies and retailers, this means the ecommerce platform cannot be considered in isolation from the systems around it. Orders, stock, fulfilment, warehouse systems and third-party services increasingly need to work together.
Omnichannel becomes genuinely unified
Omnichannel retail is not a new idea. What is changing is the depth of integration between channels.
The goal is no longer simply to let customers buy online and in store. Retailers are increasingly connecting their customer data, stock and fulfilment operations so that the different parts of the business work together.
Research from Retail Economics has highlighted the difficulty of achieving this. Only around one in five retailers currently feel they deliver a truly unified customer experience, while legacy systems and data silos remain significant barriers for larger and omnichannel retailers.
The opportunity is therefore much bigger than adding another sales channel. It is about creating one connected retail operation.
Currys: bringing channels and customer data together
Currys provides a strong UK example.
In its 2025/26 results, the retailer reported that omnichannel sales had reached 33% of UK and Ireland revenue, up three percentage points over two years. It is also bringing customer data that previously sat across separate databases, including Currys Perks, credit, iD Mobile and repair plans, into a single customer view.
John Lewis is taking a similar approach to fulfilment.
The retailer extended its Ship from Store service to 28 locations, effectively using its physical estate as part of its fulfilment network.
This is what unified commerce increasingly looks like in practice. The store isn't simply a place to buy something. It can also become a fulfilment location, a customer service channel and a source of inventory.
For retailers, this creates opportunities to make better use of existing infrastructure. For agencies, it means building digital experiences that can work with the wider retail operation rather than treating ecommerce as a standalone channel.
Personalisation becomes more contextual
Personalisation has been an ecommerce priority for years. The next stage is about making it more relevant, more immediate and more closely connected to what the customer is doing.
Adobe's 2026 retail research found that 83% of brands believe highly personalised interactions that anticipate consumer needs in real time will define breakthrough customer experiences over the next two to three years.
That could mean more than product recommendations.
Personalisation can influence search results, merchandising, content, promotions, loyalty experiences and communications. The aim is to make the experience more useful rather than simply showing customers their name or recommending another product.
First-party data becomes increasingly valuable
John Lewis is already investing in this area.
In 2026, the John Lewis Partnership introduced a new retail media platform using its first-party customer data to help brands target customer segments across John Lewis and Waitrose. It also introduced measurement that can connect online advertising activity with purchases made in physical stores.
This demonstrates where personalisation is heading: retailers are using the information they already have about their customers to create more relevant experiences across multiple touchpoints.
For retailers, that makes customer data increasingly valuable. For agencies, it creates a need for ecommerce platforms that can accommodate different data sources and support the experiences built around them.
Product discovery moves beyond traditional search
The way customers discover products is changing.
For years, retailers have optimised for search engines and their own onsite search. Those channels still matter, but shoppers now have more ways to discover products, from social platforms and influencers to AI assistants and conversational search.
This shift puts more emphasis on the quality and structure of product information.
Product names, descriptions, specifications, variants, availability and other attributes need to be useful not just to someone browsing a website, but potentially to search engines, marketplaces, social platforms and AI systems that are deciding which products to show.
That makes product data an increasingly important part of ecommerce strategy.
It also makes flexibility important. Retailers cannot necessarily predict where customers will discover their products in the future, so their ecommerce platform needs to be capable of responding to new channels as they emerge.
Operational efficiency becomes a competitive advantage
The final trend is less visible to customers, but potentially just as important: ecommerce retailers are putting more focus on the efficiency of everything happening behind the storefront.
As customer expectations rise, retailers are dealing with pressure across fulfilment, delivery, returns, stock management and international expansion.
Research from ILG, based on 328 UK ecommerce leaders, found that operational challenges are increasingly shaping ecommerce growth, with fulfilment costs, returns and multichannel retail among the issues facing retailers as they scale.
Returns are a particularly good example of how operational decisions affect the customer experience.
Research from IMRG and nShift found that 85.6% of UK consumers consider a retailer's returns policy important when deciding whether to buy online. A poor returns experience also has a direct impact on retention: 42.3% said they would be much less inclined to shop with a retailer again after a poor experience, while 28.8% said they would stop shopping with that retailer altogether.
The lesson is simple: ecommerce performance is not only about attracting customers. The systems behind the storefront need to support the experience customers have been promised.
Preparing your ecommerce platform for what's next
The retailers best placed to take advantage of these trends won't necessarily be the ones that adopt every new technology first.
They will be the ones with an ecommerce foundation that allows them to adapt.
AI shopping, automation, personalisation and new discovery channels all depend on systems being able to share data, connect with other technologies and respond to changing requirements.
That is where an extensible ecommerce platform can make a difference.
Built to extend
Aero gives agencies the ability to extend the platform through a wide range of modules, additional fields and custom functionality, while delivering consistent, reliable experiences, even as catalogues grow and complexify.
This means agencies can build around the requirements of individual retailers rather than forcing every project into the same structure.
Flexible product discovery
Aero's search and listing system allows developers to add custom data to search documents and create custom facets for product filtering.
For retailers with complex catalogues, that creates the flexibility to structure product discovery around the information that matters to their customers.
APIs and integrations
Aero's API provides access to areas including products, variants, orders, fulfilments, customers, stock, categories and attributes.
That provides a foundation for connecting the ecommerce platform with the wider technology stack, from stock and fulfilment systems to other services and customer-facing experiences.
A platform that gives agencies control
Aero is designed with developers and agencies in mind. Registered agency and developer partners can access the platform's source code, while agencies also receive dedicated Slack support from the Aero team, alongside documentation and training.
That matters when the next ecommerce requirement isn't something that exists as a standard feature.
The future of ecommerce is unlikely to be defined by one technology. AI, automation, omnichannel retail, personalisation and new discovery channels will continue to develop alongside technologies we haven't adopted yet.
The important thing is having a platform that can keep up.
Build for what's next with Aero
Retailers don't need to predict exactly what ecommerce will look like in 2027, 2028 or beyond.
They need an ecommerce platform that gives them the flexibility to respond when customer behaviour changes, new channels emerge and new technology becomes useful.
Aero provides the core ecommerce functionality, developer control and extensibility that retailers and agencies need to build for what comes next.
Book a demo to see how Aero can support your next ecommerce project.
