Your customer journey is leaking revenue. Here’s how to fix it. 

Shoppers now ask AI assistants what they want to buy and get a short, curated list of recommendations with reasons, not a list of links to look up. Amazon’s Help Me Decide feature picks one product and explains why. Pinterest introduced a multimodal AI shopping assistant that turns voice, text, and image prompts into shoppable recommendations. Snap is building conversational search into Snapchat through a $400M partnership with Perplexity, bringing cited, in-chat answers to nearly a billion users starting in 2026. 

Assistant-led shopping is gaining ground, but The 2026 commerce readiness index, based on surveys of 200 global brand and retail executives, found that most retailers and brands are not ready. “Customer journeys are bleeding revenue. The cracks are everywhere: prospective shoppers bounce at broken links, irrelevant ads, and empty shelves, while current customers churn after bad service, costly returns, and radio silence from brands. Each leak bleeds profit.”  

Pouring more spend into acquisition won’t fix a leaky funnel. Instead, you must patch your highest-loss points first, then scale your spend to drive growth. 

Find the leaks first 

Before fixing anything, identify where journeys fail. According to the survey, retailers lose prospects before checkout. 26% point to gaps between ads and products, and 19% to payment processing issues. 

But brands lose customers after the sale. 22% cite customer care problems and 17% point to returns and refunds. 

These two realities suggest a practical order of work: stabilize pre-checkout for retailers and post-purchase for brands, supported by clean data and responsive operations. 

Why leaks persist (and why “move fast” isn’t enough) 

The index shows that while retailers and brands say they want to move quickly, their inputs and workflows slow them down. “Fully automated workflows are almost nonexistent,” according to the survey respondents. 

While 99% of brands and 100% of retailers say they feel confident measuring performance, high confidence is not the same as accuracy. Nearly 75% of brands and retailers admit they sometimes make decisions based on inaccurate data. And more than one-third say it happens “often” or “all the time.” 

These leaks are not random. They come from manual processes and imperfect data. Fix the inputs to steady the buyer journey. 

Start with these four leaks 

Start with the biggest-loss points. Each fix will reinforce the next. 

1. Ad → product page 
   26% of retailers said ad-to-product gaps proved most problematic. To fix it, make ads match reality. Tie placements to real-time catalog data: titles, images, price, and availability. Replace static landing pages with feed-driven product pages. Run daily link and variant checks. The result is fewer wasted clicks and a clearer path to cart. 
2. Payment processing  
   19% said payment processing is the second-largest failure point for retailers. Treat checkout errors as system signals. Track decline codes and 3D secure (3DS) loops. Tune fraud rules to reduce false positives. Align tax and shipping logic with inventory holds so payment retries go through. When payments clear reliably, your media and product page improvements (PDP) have a bigger impact. 
3. Customer care  
   For brands, customer service is the largest post-purchase leak with 22% citing it as their top breakdown. Give service agents one unified view of orders, inventory, and fulfillment. Publish status updates across channels so customers don’t need to ask. Faster resolutions protect margin and earn the next purchase. 
4. Returns and refunds 
   Treat returns as structured feedback. Feed return reason codes back into product copy, images, and targeting to fix fit, spec, and compatibility issues earlier in the funnel. Keep the returns process easy enough to preserve loyalty, but tighten controls where needed.  

Make speed and accuracy inseparable 

According to the index, “Data accuracy and speed can’t be trade-offs. They have to be solved together.” That starts with reducing manual work, checking data as it comes in, keeping prices, inventory, and delivery promises up to date, and stopping bad data before it goes live. 

When performance signals do light up, move quickly: over half of retailers say they respond within 48 hours, while brands are more likely to take three to five business days. Shorten the loop so fixes land while demand is still happening. 

What to scale once the leaks are sealed 

Social commerce leads on conversion, and site experience is close behind. Reach doesn’t matter if the landing page is slow or checkout trips people up. Fix the path first, then spend. 

Customers are shortening the distance from discovery to purchase. The Index’s guidance is simple: fix the biggest leaks first, then scale your spend.  

Download the full report here. To turn the index into an action plan for your team, talk to Rithum today.