Endear Holiday Shopper Analysis Reveals What Turns Seasonal Shoppers Into Long-Term Customers

63% of shoppers are more likely to return after associate follow-up, highlighting a major opportunity for retailers beyond the holiday season

NEW YORK, Sept. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. holiday retail sales surpassed $1 trillion for the first time in 2025, and NRF expects above-average retail growth this year. As retailers head into the busiest shopping season, the opportunity extends well beyond the holiday transactions.

Research from retail CRM leader Endear finds nearly two-thirds of consumers are more likely to return to a store when an associate follows up with them personally, and more than half have made an additional purchase as a result of associate follow-up. To help retailers better understand and maximize these touch points, Endear is releasing findings from the 2026 Holiday Shopper Analysis, which combines consumer research, holiday retail performance data and insights from leading brands to reveal what shoppers want from store associates — and what brings them back.

"Retailers have historically measured holiday success by what happens between Black Friday and the end of December, but the real measure is how many of those shoppers come back," said Leigh Sevin, co-founder and CEO of Endear. "The first purchase is only part of the opportunity. When associates understand who their customers are and have the tools to follow up in a personal, relevant way, a holiday transaction can become the beginning of a much longer relationship."

Endear analyzed more than 100 million SMS messages and 2.2 million clienteling interactions during Black Friday week 2025, and found that customers who received tailored outreach from store associates were 30x more likely to make a purchase than those receiving traditional marketing emails or SMS blasts. Clienteling-driven revenue also increased 22% year-over-year.

The report identifies several ways retailers can turn holiday interactions into longer-term customer relationships:

• Treat every holiday shopper as a future customer. Capture the information and preferences associates need to continue the relationship after the initial purchase, rather than treating the holiday transaction as a one-time event.
• Make outreach feel human, even at scale. Use customer history, preferences and past interactions to personalize follow-up, while tapping AI-powered tools to help associates identify who to reach out to, what to say and when. This gives store teams more time to focus on the personal interactions that build customer relationships.
• Give associates a reason to reach out. Equip store teams with relevant, timely ways to reconnect, from personalized gift recommendations and new arrivals to product follow-ups, instead of relying on generic promotional messages.
• Build the next purchase into the holiday strategy. Plan post-purchase outreach before the holiday rush begins, giving associates a clear path to reconnect with first-time and seasonal shoppers after the initial transaction and into the new year.

AG Jeans has seen the impact of putting personalized relationships at the center of its retail strategy. After integrating Endear with Shopify, the brand grew the share of its business driven through clienteling from approximately 15% to 30% in one year.

"The holiday season is an important time to bring new customers into the brand, but what happens after that first purchase is just as important," said James Bishop, Director of Retail at AG Jeans. "We encourage our stylists to follow up in a way that feels personal and authentic — not like another marketing message. That human connection helps us continue the relationship beyond the store visit and gives customers a reason to come back."

Beyond the holidays, Endear's data shows that personalized associate relationships can have a measurable impact on customer value. Brands using Endear to send personalized, one-to-one messages see a 70% increase in order frequency and a 31.6% increase in average order value, while more than 45% of Endear customers' sales come from repeat shoppers.

Endear powers relationship-driven selling for more than 2,000 stores across 19 countries, driving over $221 million in attributable revenue for retail teams at gorjana, Psycho Bunny, EVEREVE, Tecovas, Reformation and more. Endear was recently named Cross-Channel Orchestration Platform of the Year in the MarTech Breakthrough Awards.

Retailers looking to maximize the value of holiday traffic and turn seasonal shoppers into year-round customers can access resources at https://endearhq.com/guides.

About Endear

Endear is the retail CRM for modern brands that want to build more meaningful customer relationships that drive real results. Designed for scaling and enterprise brands, Endear empowers store teams with unified customer profiles backed by real-time data, seamless integrations, and AI-powered tools that make clienteling scalable and effective. By streamlining outreach across channels like text, email, and WhatsApp, Endear helps deliver personalized, high-impact customer experiences that increase foot traffic and boost sales. By making every engagement trackable and actionable, Endear is redefining retail ROI so every store becomes a performance channel and every interaction becomes an opportunity for growth. For more information, visit https://endearhq.com/.

About the Survey
The research was commissioned by Endear and conducted by Censuswide, among a sample of 1,000 US general consumers aged 24-54, nationally representative. The data was collected between 02/16/2026 - 02/19/2026. Censuswide is a member of the Market Research Society (MRS) and the British Polling Council (BPC), and a signatory of the Global Data Quality Pledge. We adhere to the MRS Code of Conduct and ESOMAR principles.

SOURCE Endear