Retail in Transition: Nikki Baird on Consumer Sentiment, Unified CX, and the Evolving Role of Stores

In this exclusive interview, Total Retail speaks with Nikki Baird, vice president of strategy and product at Aptos, to explore the evolving retail landscape. Baird offers valuable insights into shifting consumer behavior, the growing importance of unified customer experiences, and the strategic role of technology — particularly artificial intelligence — in enhancing in-store engagement. She also shares her perspective on the unpredictable retail outlook, the renewed significance of brick-and-mortar stores, and what it will take for retailers to build lasting relationships with today’s cautious yet connected shoppers.

Total Retail: What are the consumer behavior trends that you're tracking in the first half of 2025?
Nikki Baird: Crumbling confidence. Everything I’ve seen is that this is very much a vibecession — consumers don’t feel great about the future, and even though their present situation isn't so bad, they anticipate that it will get worse and they're contemplating pulling back spending.

Nikki Baird, Vice President, Strategy and Product, Aptos

TR: How can retailers meet the customer experience (CX) expectations of today's consumers, particularly in-store?
NB: Retailers need to be really careful about addressing CX in stores because consumers aren't just looking for “more digital” in-store or a re-creation of the online experience in-store. They're looking for a connected experience. For example, if the retailer is using beauty shots online, they want to see the same imagery in stores. They want to see the same featured products at the front of the store as they see on the homepage of the website. They want to feel like they’re at the same retailer online as in-store, and expect retailers to do things that enhance that feeling rather than detract or have big disconnects.

TR: How can retailers utilize technology such as artificial intelligence to improve CX?
NB: One thing that retailers always need to keep in mind is that the customer experience in stores should primarily be delivered through the store associate. Yes, you want to have options for consumers who don’t need store associate help, but the biggest difference between online and stores is that stores have people in them — store associates. Technology needs to be just as much about enhancing and enabling the in-store experience as it needs to be about ultimately delivering CX.

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For example, CRM tools can provide an enormous amount of customer data that a store associate might be able to take advantage of, but in most situations the store doesn’t know when the customer is coming in, and assuming that you can incentivize the customer to identify herself before she gets to the register, then the store associate has all of 30 seconds max to absorb any relevant information about that customer in the moment. Therefore, one thing we’re working on at Aptos is a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) customer summarization that will highlight two to three things that a store associate can absorb instantly and use that as their jumping off point for engaging with that customer.

TR: Why is creating a unified shopping experience across channels so important to retailers' future success?
NB: Well, one, online isn't as profitable as it used to be. Therefore, stores are playing a more important role than they did even two years to three years ago. But also, cross-channel shoppers are more profitable. And a customer acquired in a store has a greater lifetime value than a customer acquired online. Retailers have to build enough delight to get a customer to a store, and enough trust to maintain engagement across channels.

TR: What are you forecasting for the retail industry through the end of the year?
NB: No comment! I mean, I'm forecasting an unforecastable future through the end of the year. My prediction is that retail is going to be completely unpredictable. I don't think that consumer confidence has hit rock bottom yet, and I don’t believe that the lack of confidence has turned into realized intent to pull back on spending. All kinds of things could change that could tip us back into greater confidence or could tip us harder into the current downcast expectations.

TR: How do you see the role of the brick-and-mortar store continuing to evolve?
NB: The front of the store needs to be more experiential and community focused. It should deliver on connecting shoppers to each other almost as much as connecting shoppers to the brand. The back of the store needs to get much more multifunctional — it should serve as a fulfillment center, a pickup point, a returns location, as well as a backstock location for the front of the store. And for fashion, I still see a greater future for the fitting room. Fit is such an essential part of the shopper journey; retailers really need to think about how to make that fitting room experience worth going to the store for vs. buying and returning too many things online.