mornin’ merrymakers 🔮💊🧘‍♀️

a year ago, i shared my top 5 predictions for 2025 & then graded myself on accuracy a few weeks back. i predicted:

i think many of these trends will keep on lingering. but i decided to focus my attention this year on one specific area of retail that is booming:

wellness.

it’s also anarea i know deeply. i played a very small role in the apple watch launch, worked at classpass back in the days of $99 unlimited, helped warby parker significantly grow their eye exam business, & all my consulting clients last year were in wellness related. so i can confidently say

health is hotter than ever in retail right now.

i'm not talking about a juice bar tucked in the corner or a vitamin aisle refresh. i'm talking about landlords actively courting physical therapists over apparel brands. cryotherapy studios replacing shoe stores. fertility clinics becoming mall anchors.

the data backs it up too.

wellness tenants now command a 4-7% rental premium per square foot & account for over 15% of new retail leases in major metros. with retail vacancy hovering near record lows, landlords are betting big on concepts that drive repeat visits.

nothing drives repeat visits like your health.

so this year, i'm going deep on wellness retail with 6 predictions across two newsies.

retail is more & more becoming the new front door to healthcare.

not hospitals. not doctor’s offices. retail.

especially with preventative & out of pocket series.

some giants tried and bowed out of health when the economics got messy. but since then others came in more focused, more modular, way more aesthetically pleasing, & most importantly with easy to use online portals.

wild to me how many medical practices still rely on paper & telephones….

thankfully now the best practices of retail are being applied to med-tail & wellness.

you can go to your physical therapist, freeze your eggs, test your hormones, get peptide injections, and book ketamine therapy… all in the same shopping center where you used to buy candles.

this is more than wellness-washing. it’s a category reset.

four forces are colliding at once:

the result is a new kind of “store.”

one that doesn’t necessarily sell any products, but solves your problems with weekly services and protocols.

personalization used to mean “people who bought this also liked.”

the algorithm & ai have gotten smarter, but they’ve also gotten a lot more data thanks to our wearbles and the surge of lab testing data.

now personalizations means your specific biomarkers.

in 2026, health-forward retailers are layering diagnostics, wearables, and testing data into the shopping experience itself. what matters isn’t just what’s trending. it’s what aligns with your labs, your sleep, your stress, your genes, and what you (not even necessarily your doctor) think your bio data.

supplements mapped to lab results. nutrition tied to real data. routines adjusted in real time.

personalization will be less digital alignment & much more diagnostic alignment.

it’s diagnostic.

retailers help customers understand themselves. and then quietly guide the basket.

i’m personally rooting for someone to finally modernize lab testing. because right now, the customer experience is consistently awful & still feels like a fax machine industry pretending it’s a tech company.

whoever figures out how to connect biomarkers to baskets with TRUST is going to own the next decade of wellness commerce.

gone are the days of product-led growth retail strategies.

welcome the era of people-led growth

think run clubs. book clubs. walking clubs. support groups. podcast tapings. exclusive merch. the brands winning right now understand that community programming loudly outperforms online community and ads on the metrics that matter: repeat visits, dwell time, word-of-mouth.

routines beat reach.
events beat impressions.
belonging beats branding.

customers don’t just want to buy stuff. they want to belong somewhere. retailers are responding by hosting dinners instead of discounts, and inviting the best customers on trips instead of influencers who barely know your product.

all three of these trends point to the same shift:

this isn’t wellness in retail.
it’s retail stepping in where other systems fall short.

people aren’t turning to stores for health just because it’s trendy. they’re doing it because traditional healthcare is confusing, fragmented, and hard to navigate. plus online-only wellness can only go so far.

retail shows up in real life with real people to help.

it builds habits. it earns trust through repetition. it makes intimidating things feel manageable because someone can hold your hand through it.

when health moves into retail, it stops being reactive. it becomes part of your week. part of your neighborhood. something you engage with before things go wrong.

there will be wellness-washing. there always is. but the signal here is real.

the stores winning in 2026 won’t just sell you something once. they’ll earn a spot on your calendar and help you feel a little better each time you come back.

on thursday, we’ll dive into this more with three more predictions about how wellness is changing what stores look like, feel like, and do.

p.s. if your gut needs more wellness & you need a new gym back, check this 👇 ag1’s been a multi-merry partner bc i drink it every day!