Owned-Channel Focus Slips Ahead of 2026 Holiday Season

By Elena Vasquez

Only 46% of brands and retailers plan to use their owned e-commerce sites during the 2026 holiday season, down from 69% in 2025. The figure comes from Modern Retail+ Research's report "The 2026 guide to holiday marketing strategies," based on a survey of 90 brand and retail professionals plus interviews with marketing executives.

Use of owned brick-and-mortar stores is falling just as fast. Sixty percent of respondents said they plan to use their owned physical stores during the 2026 holidays, down from 84% a year earlier. The decline is paradoxical. Marketers themselves say these channels matter more in the holiday period, not less: 67% of respondents said owned physical stores grow more important during the holidays, and 49% said the same of owned e-commerce sites.

Why is investment dropping in channels marketers call important?

Ari Bloom, founder and CEO of brand incubator A-Frame Brands, points to complacency. "Brands take their own channels and especially physical stores for granted," Bloom said. "We see that repeatedly as the pendulum shifts back to controlled environments, but the reality is that wholesale channels are dying. Physical and multi-brand retail, except for mass, is going away. Very few department stores are healthy enough to survive this year, and a lot have gone out of business."

Susan Grossman, evp of consumer acquisition and engagement services at Mastercard, reads the numbers differently. She does not think marketers are becoming less invested in owned channels. The problem, she said by email, is that consumers no longer follow a predictable path to purchase.

"Today's holiday shopper might discover a product through a creator, compare options on a retailer's site, read reviews, receive an offer in a banking app, and ultimately purchase somewhere else entirely," Grossman said. "The journey is increasingly fragmented and non-linear. As a result, marketers are investing less in any single channel and more in creating connected experiences across channels."

Which channels still dominate holiday sales?

Despite the decline, owned physical stores and owned e-commerce sites remain the No. 1 and No. 2 most-used sales channels for the holidays, positions they have held since 2024. Third-party brand stores and Amazon tied for third place.

Amazon remains the dominant digital marketplace. Thirty-three percent of brands and retailers plan to sell through Amazon during the 2026 holiday season, and 38% of marketers said Amazon grows more important to their holiday sales. Other digital marketplaces trail: 29% plan to sell through them, and 26% said they grow more important during the holidays.

Dominance does not mean every brand should follow. Laura Brodie, chief growth officer at supplement company Ritual, said the right channel depends on purchase frequency. "If you're thinking about low frequency one-time purchase, the shift toward marketplaces and retail makes a ton of sense because the digital foot traffic is there," Brodie said. "You don't need to pay to drive [consumers] to the destination."

For high-frequency products the calculus flips, she added: "If purchase frequency is high, the story shifts a little bit because the value of retaining that customer in an owned channel and driving the lifetime value can outweigh the cost of customer acquisition." Acquisition costs spike during holidays, she noted, so the trade-off matters.

How big is TikTok Shop becoming?

The survey tracked TikTok Shop as a standalone channel for the first time this year. It is the most widely planned social commerce channel by a wide margin: 21% of respondents plan to use TikTok Shop during the 2026 holidays, against 6% for any other social commerce platform.

Bloom cautioned that TikTok Shop favors creators over established brands. "TikTok Shop is going to be very content creator-heavy and it's harder for brands to do it unless they're really good at working with those content creators," he said. "It's hard for brand stores to do it on their own on TikTok. It's not set up for it, and it's not a platform that natively works well with established brands. Creator brands, on the other hand, are going to be fantastic there."

The 2026 holiday data suggests marketers face a widening split: owned channels still carry the most sales, but budgets now chase fragmented shopper journeys across creators, marketplaces and apps.