Jessica Ram\u00edrez, co-founder and managing director at The Consumer Collective, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss her outlook for consumer behaviour in 2026. <\/p>\n
New shopping trends reshaped the Canadian retail landscape over the past year and are likely to shape what comes next.<\/p>\n
In 2025, consumers showed a clear divide in spending habits, embraced convenient delivery, and turned away from traditional shopping malls, retail analyst Bruce Winder of Bruce Winder Retail told BNN Bloomberg.<\/p>\n
This \u201cK-shaped\u201d economy defined 2025, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost like a two tiered economy, depending on how affluent you are. So that dictates what products, what retailers, what services, are doing well, versus which ones are struggling,\u201d said Winder.<\/p>\n
Winder said while some affluent consumers are spending well, many have drifted to the bottom of the K, shopping at places like No Frills and Dollarama.<\/p>\n
That split is expected to persist into 2026, according to Jessica Ramirez, co-founder and managing director at the Consumer Collective.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe repetitively said, the consumer is shaky. The sentiment is quite tough out there. And the consumer that was most hit was middle income and low income,\u201d said Ramirez in an interview on BNN Bloomberg.<\/p>\n
She said many of the affected consumers are either \u201cout of savings or have been dipping into savings.\u201d She also said many have been using \u201cbuy now, pay later options\u201d on their credit cards, creating new debt.<\/p>\n
Tariffs and job anxiety weigh on spending<\/p>\n
Looking into 2026, Winder said tariffs are already having an impact through consumer confidence and costs.<\/p>\n
He said the threat of tariffs has made some shoppers more nervous about spending because of job uncertainty, particularly in steel, automotive and aluminum-related industries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t know if they\u2019re going to have a job in the future,\u201d said Winder.<\/p>\n
Winder also said tariffs can feed inflation through the supply chain.<\/p>\n
He said Canadian retailers often buy products in the U.S., and those U.S. input costs can be affected when components or finished goods come from regions facing tariffs, including parts of Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s imported a little bit of inflation into our country too,\u201d said Winder.<\/p>\n
Same-day delivery is a game changer<\/p>\n
Amazon\u2019s push into rapid delivery is a key reason consumers have fewer incentives to visit brick-and-mortar stores, said Winder, adding that Amazon is already offering multiple deliveries in a day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Toronto, Ottawa and Hamilton, you can get it four times a day,\u201d said Winder.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt becomes sort of a smaller reason now as to why you need to go to brick-and-mortar stores.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winder highlighted Amazon\u2019s massive scale in Canada. He said the company has invested about $65 billion in the country since 2010, with about 46,000 employees and 70 facilities.<\/p>\n
Stores still dominate, but the mix is changing<\/p>\n
Despite the growth of E-commerce, Winder said Canada remains a store-first retail market.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrick-and-mortar is still 80 to 85 per cent of retail sales,\u201d he said,\u201d he said, adding that stores still have an advantage for experiences such as trying products on or getting in-person service.<\/p>\n
Ramirez said higher-income consumers have continued to spend but are still \u201cbeing quite cautious.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said those shoppers are still holding up a large share of retail sales, but have started \u201ctrading down\u201d in some areas, including groceries. The luxury jewelry market has continued to do well.<\/p>\n
AI starts to influence how Canadians shop<\/p>\n
Winder said 2025 also marked an early shift in how consumers discover products, with the emergence of AI tools that act like shopping assistants.<\/p>\n
He said AI agents like Perplexity, Google\u2019s Gemini, and Amazon\u2019s Rufus can search the internet, recommend products and compare prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese AI agents can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you,\u201d Winder said.<\/p>\n
He also said they can forecast demand based on consumer spending habits.<\/p>\n
Malls struggle to replace anchor tenants<\/p>\n
On the real estate side, Winder said mall owners are struggling to fill space.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really difficult for malls to fill that space with anchor tenants,\u201d he said, adding that some landlords are breaking up space or bringing in unconventional tenants like car dealerships, pickleball courts or service providers.<\/p>\n
Winder said the strongest, marquee centres can still attract tenants, pointing to Toronto\u2019s Eaton Centre as an example.<\/p>\n
But he said many suburban \u201cB and C\u201d malls are struggling to backfill space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jessica Ram\u00edrez, co-founder and managing director at The Consumer Collective, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss her outlook for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-384614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}