In online retailing, not all CX improvement is instantly visible. Some brands improve steadily while others slowly fall behind. 

That’s the overwhelming message from this month’s Humii’s 2026 Online CX Index, prepared by Humii and Inside Retail, which highlights six key incremental wins that compound to drive growth for retail’s movers. 

“In most cases, the gap between the movers and the losers is not driven by significant, milestone innovations,” explains Humii CEO, Mareile Osthus. “It is driven by small but consistent improvements … or, rather, a lack of them.”

Osthus says the brands moving up the rankings the fastest are not reinventing the customer experience, they are constantly refining it. 

She identifies six key actions that retailers seeking to rise in the CX rankings can adopt to speed their progress:

• Enhance the search experience, often supported by AI: In simple terms, make it easy for shoppers to find the right item. A search bar that recognises typos, suggests relevant terms, and consistently delivers accurate results. LSKD is a great example — type a few letters and the right suggestions already appear. Hitting “no results” is almost impossible.
• Offer live chat that actually resolves queries: Instead of pushing multiple articles, provide pre-filtered and guided responses. Most importantly, there is a clear escalation path to a human. Princess Polly is a standout here; its AI assistant handles most queries, and when it cannot, the transition to a human is seamless. At no point is it unclear whether you are talking to a chatbot or a human.
• Tighten delivery and dispatch accuracy: This aspect of fulfilment should be less about speed and more about precision. Setting clear expectations before checkout is key. Many leading brands allow customers to input a postcode to see delivery timelines upfront. Showpo executes this well, clearly outlining dispatch timing and cut-off windows, followed by strong communication throughout the delivery journey.
• Make returns seamless: This includes self-service return portals and clear status updates. For example, ‘We’ve received your parcel. Your refund will be processed within X days.’ Managing customer expectations here is critical. Camilla is a strong example, triggering the refund process early and clearly communicating timelines.
• Provide clear product information: One might expect this to be a given, but many retailers fall down here. Customers should be able to understand a product at a glance, with icons for key attributes, visible sustainability credentials, care guides, and easily understood sizing insights. All that product information reduces friction.
• Introduce targeted innovation that removes hesitation: Oroton is a standout retailer here with its ‘See What Fits’ feature that shows what fits inside a handbag across different packing scenarios. This is a simple but highly effective way to remove uncertainty before purchase.

Osthus stresses that while considered individually, these improvements may seem small. “But together, they create momentum. 

“They lead to fewer broken journeys, fewer edge-case failures and fewer moments where customers hesitate. That adds to higher conversion, happier customers and increased sales.”

The hidden driver: Closing the gap between intent and action

One quality stands out across improving brands: They remove the moments where customers pause.

“Most often, customers do not pause because they do not want to buy. They pause because something feels slightly off,” she explains. 

“It might be because of unclear delivery or refund timelines, which can be addressed by expectation management, a lack of product detail or information being too hard to find information, solved by ensuring clarity site-wide, or due to a search tool that does not return accurate results, solved by focusing on site functionality.”

The brands rising in the rankings are the ones that are reducing those micro-frictions.

“The key here is managing expectations at the same time as ensuring strong functionality and clarity.

Across the market, we’re seeing strong examples of this in brands like Princess Polly, VRG GRL, LSKD, Intersport, Lorna Jane, New Balance, Asics, Purebaby are consistently raising the bar.

The Losers: Standing still in a moving market

The biggest declines aren’t coming from brands doing something drastically wrong; they’re coming from brands that haven’t kept pace.

Osthus stresses that in a market where expectations are shifting, standing still is effectively moving backwards. “What was considered good two years ago is now simply expected.”

Common patterns across declining brands include:

• Slower response times, particularly in email support, with unclear timelines.
• Only offering return authorisations, without a self-service portal.
• Outdated checkout flows, where shipping costs are only revealed at the final step.
• Inconsistent delivery communication, often lacking dispatch updates.

“None of these fail loudly,” stresses Osthus. “But they compound. And increasingly, they fall short of what customers expect.”

CX is not static, Osthus concludes. “It is moving – slowly, but consistently. 

“The brands gaining ground are improving in small ways, every day. The ones falling behind are those who are relying on an experience that might once have worked but has failed to evolve.”