The National Retail Federation predicted retail sales in November and December of 2025, will grow between 3.7% and 4.2% over 2024. That translates to total spending between $1.01 trillion and $1.02 trillion. By comparison, 2024’s holiday sales rose 4.3% over 2023 to reach $976.1 billion.
While consumer demand remains strong, consumer expectation hits new heights. With many looking to get packages fast, have a more unique experience, nicer packaging, etc. It’s more than just a simple transaction.
SPS Commerce’s latest product announcements reflect a recognition that the future of retail supply chains won’t be defined by incremental efficiency gains, but by how well companies can adapt to constant disruption.
At the center of SPS’s strategy is the belief that AI will increasingly function as the operating system for commerce. Rather than serving as a standalone analytics layer, AI is beginning to orchestrate inventory decisions, demand forecasting, and fulfillment coordination at machine speed. That orchestration, however, depends on something far less flashy: clean, shared, and standardized data across trading partners.
SPS is positioning its network as the connective tissue that makes AI-driven supply chains viable. New AI-enabled fulfillment capabilities are designed to help suppliers elevate performance, surface insights faster, and connect into what SPS describes as an agentic supply chain ecosystem.
The company is also aligning itself with broader industry efforts by joining the Commerce Operations Foundation as a founding member and supporting the launch of the Order Network eXchange, or onX.
The ambition behind onX is to create a shared operational language for orders, inventory, and fulfillment data across commerce and logistics systems. By enabling real-time data flow between ERPs, WMS and OMS platforms, 3PLs, and emerging AI tools, SPS is aiming to close a long-standing gap between selling channels and fulfillment execution, a gap that has historically limited both visibility and automation.
That foundation becomes even more important as omnichannel retail moves from strategy to baseline expectation. Consumers no longer distinguish between ecommerce, stores, marketplaces, or drop-ship models. They expect speed and accuracy everywhere. For suppliers, that translates into managing more order types across more systems, often with little tolerance for error.
“The landscape is shifting, and it can feel impossible to keep up,” said Mike Svatek, chief product officer at SPS Commerce. “As a global company with access to wholesale and point-of-sale data and market signals from both retailers and suppliers, we are in a unique position to identify the trends that are shaping and re-shaping the supply chain. With that information in hand, we design solutions that help our partners rapidly navigate these changes.”
SPS’s latest automation capabilities focus on removing friction that still exists at the operational level. Many businesses continue to receive purchase orders via email, creating delays and manual work.
New PDF order automation converts those documents into ERP-ready transactions, allowing partners to respond faster as omnichannel volume increases. Deeper system automation for platforms like SAP S/4HANA and Shopify is designed to centralize orders, inventory, and shipping updates, giving retailers a consistent, accurate view even as sellers expand into more complex fulfillment models.
SPS’ Relationship Center provides a shared space for retailers and suppliers to exchange item data, compliance requirements, and operational expectations, helping reduce onboarding friction and speed time to revenue. On the manufacturing side, SPS’s Manufacturing Suite extends that visibility upstream, giving companies insight into supplier performance, quality, and reliability as they diversify production and sourcing.
All of this feeds into what SPS calls the adaptive commerce era. Demand patterns now shift too frequently for traditional planning cycles to keep pace. Promotions, regional preferences, and supply disruptions can quickly introduce both operational and financial risk.
New capabilities within SPS’s Supply Chain Performance Suite are designed to help trading partners respond in near real time. Shared performance dashboards highlight fill rates, on-time delivery, compliance status, and inventory trends so issues can be addressed before they impact availability. Revenue recovery and billable overages tools focus on identifying discrepancies that often arise during demand swings, helping suppliers protect margins without straining retail relationships.
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