How the 2026 Hot 25 Retailers flip life-style into loyalty

In our fragmented, polarized and complicated world, a way of belonging is as vital as ever — and retailers that present it are discovering new methods to construct loyalty. The 2026 NRF Hot 25 Retailers listing highlights corporations utilizing worth, comfort and life-style connections to show gross sales development into stronger buyer loyalty. 

The Hot 25 Retailers listing, compiled by Kantar, ranks the nation’s fastest-growing retail corporations based mostly on year-over-year home gross sales. This 12 months’s listing is bursting with alternatives for shoppers to align with corporations that present a way of worth, identification and emotional connection. That ranges throughout classes, together with comfort shops: Casey’s General Stores hit the listing at No. 13, QuikTrip is No. 20, and Wawa is No. 24. 

“Wawa, in particular, is a lifestyle choice,” says Dave Marcotte, Kantar senior vp. “Wawa shoppers will do anything to get to a Wawa. QuikTrip is similar. It’s not as emotional, but people who are QuikTrip shoppers are QuikTrip shoppers.” 

Convenience shops are typically about, properly, comfort. But these retailers have shifted the sport, even when shoppers must exit of their manner. Casey’s is beloved for its meals, he says, from the high-quality pizzas to the meat case, and Wawa for its “entire persona.” 

Marcotte additionally highlights life-style retailers comparable to Miniso (No. 1) and 99 Ranch Market (No. 15). MINISO represents life-style in just about all the things it does, Marcotte says. And as for Asian grocery store chain 99 Ranch Market, “their produce, their bakery, their food, their prepared foods are light years beyond any of the chain grocers. All people have to do is walk in once.” The presentation alone, he says, is sufficient to persuade those who they by no means need to go away.