The “average shopper” no longer exists. At least, not as retailers once understood them. In the U.S., consumers are increasingly multicultural and digitally connected. Their purchasing decisions are also shaped by cultural moments that extend well beyond the traditional retail calendar. 

For retailers, these shifts have implications for how assortments are planned and how products show up on the shelf.  Below, we dive into shelf design of the past, present, and future, highlighting areas of improvement in inclusive merchandising to drive relevance, customer loyalty, and category growth.  

Designing the Shelf: Past and Present  

Traditional merchandising frameworks were largely built around predictable retail seasons and national events, from back-to-school to Black Friday Assortments were often planned nationally, while historical sales data and static planograms guided decisions at the store level. 

Those approaches don’t always reflect the needs of today’s shopper. Forward-looking companies are building categories and making merchandising decisions around how diverse communities actually shop today. For many retailers, that means incorporating more localized consumer insights into core merchandising decisions. 

Areas of Opportunity for Inclusive Merchandising 

Three shifts are influencing how retailers approach inclusive merchandising: AI-enabled personalization, broader cultural occasions, and the growing purchasing power of multicultural consumers. 

AI-Enabled Personalization  

The biggest pillar of merchandising strategy, AI-enabled personalization, is enhancing inclusive merchandising and making it scalable. Traditional merchandising optimizes around average household, store, demographic, and demand forecasts, while actual behavior varies drastically based on culture, geography, life stage, household composition, and digital behavior.  

AI is enabling retailers to shift from broad assumptions of the “average shopper” toward individualized personalization. The capability allows retailers to use those differences to inform assortment and inventory decisions at a more local level. Customers who perceive personalization as effective are an estimated 80% more likely to make a purchase, making personalization relevant to both the customer experience and merchandising performance. 

One retailer, Lowe’s, has been using AI to achieve this personalization: continuously predicting localized demand, adapting store layouts, optimizing inventory, tailoring assortments by region, and incorporating local purchase behavior and social media trends. This type of approach can help individual locations better reflect the needs of their surrounding markets rather than relying solely on standardized assortments. 

As with all AI implementation, companies must be careful when utilizing AI in merchandising decision-making. Companies should leverage diverse datasets and maintain a human-in-the-loop approach to supervise AI outputs.  

Cultural Occasions  

Shoppers are increasingly organizing spending around cultural occasions outside the traditional retail calendar, including Lunar New Year or Ramadan. Major events like the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics can also create distinct purchasing occasions. 

Rather than applying the same seasonal display nationally, retailers can consider where an occasion is relevant and localize assortments accordingly. AI may further support this process by identifying changes in demand and helping teams forecast purchasing patterns around specific events. 

The commercial opportunity can be significant. Asian American consumers, for example, have estimated buying power exceeding $1.6 trillion. For retailers serving communities that celebrate Lunar New Year, understanding when shopping begins and which categories see increased demand can inform more relevant merchandising decisions. 

Execution matters as much as inclusion. Retailers should understand an occasion before incorporating it into merchandising plans and consider how products or messaging will be received by the communities involved. Major retailers have faced criticism over Juneteenth merchandising, including Kroger and Walmart. These examples illustrate why cultural relevance requires more than adding an occasion to the promotional calendar. 

Multicultural Consumers Driving Category Growth  

Research shows that multicultural consumers are category growth engines rather than specialty segments. With Black, Asian American, and Hispanic consumers all representing trillions in total buying power, companies need to make merchandising decisions around a more diverse version of the “average shopper” than traditional merchandising models were originally designed around.  

Retailers can incorporate multicultural consumer insights into assortment planning and evaluate results through measures such as category sales growth or market share. The objective isn’t simply to add more culturally specific products. It’s to understand where consumer preferences are influencing broader category demand. 

Digital behavior can provide another useful signal. Hispanic consumers, for example, have been leading adoption of streaming television relative to the general population. Behavioral shifts like these can help retailers understand how consumer groups discover products and where emerging preferences may influence the broader market. 

Connecting Online and In-Store Merchandising  

Inclusive merchandising also needs to account for how shoppers move between digital and in-store strategies and how each channel creates different opportunities for assortment and personalization.  

Online 

In 2025, eCommerce generated nearly 21% of all retail sales. Online channels give retailers greater flexibility to offer broad assortments without the same space constraints as physical stores. Digital experiences can also use browsing or purchasing behavior to personalize product discovery. 

For inclusive merchandising, that flexibility can help retailers surface products relevant to different communities without relying on a single assortment for every shopper. Retailers can also use digital channels to test demand for products before expanding their presence in physical stores. 

In-Store 

Despite the continued growth of eCommerce, physical stores remain an important part of the retail experience, as customers can see products firsthand and leave with purchases immediately. Stores also give retailers an opportunity to tailor assortments to the communities surrounding individual locations. 

For retailers, the physical shelf makes localization particularly important. Store-level purchasing patterns can inform which products receive space and how cultural occasions (particularly during holiday seasons) appear in displays. Digital tools such as QR codes can extend the assortment by connecting shoppers to additional product information or online options. 

The goal across both channels is consistency without uniformity. Retailers can create a connected experience while allowing assortments and merchandising decisions to reflect differences in how local customers shop. 

The Road Ahead  

As we move forward, inclusive merchandising will continue to grow as a competitive advantage, helping retailers better reflect how customers actually shop today and in the future. Companies will find success with category and merchandising decisions built around cultural moments beyond traditional promotional calendars, utilizing AI-enabled personalization, and designing the shelf for multicultural consumers to drive cultural relevance and growth.  

Learn more about our retail merchandise planning and allocation. 

Contributions by Spencer Simco