The original Glossy item reports findings from 90 brand and retailer professionals, supplemented by executive interviews. Planned holiday use of owned websites fell from 69% in 2025 to 46% in 2026; owned physical stores fell from 84% to 60%. These are survey responses about channel plans, not measured changes in shopper demand.
Take a hypothetical example, explicitly labeled as hypothetical: a small press-on brand that built its 2026 holiday plan around one owned storefront and one owned web shop might find that discovery and conversion are happening elsewhere. This is not evidence of what any specific brand experienced; it is simply a way to frame the decision the report excerpt raises for operators.
365 Take
The verified signal concerns respondentsтАЩ planned channel use. Despite the reported declines, owned physical stores and websites remained the surveyтАЩs two most-used holiday sales channels. Why it matters to a press-on nail operator: reviewing the role of each channel against store evidence is useful, while treating the survey as a reason to abandon owned retail is not justified.
Operator Move
One bounded action: before committing holiday press-on inventory and drop dates, run a short channel-assumption review. List the owned touchpoints your plan depends on, write down what each is expected to contribute, and identify which assumptions would break if owned-channel focus keeps softening through the season. Keep the review time-boxed and documentary rather than speculative, and do not change pricing, MOQ, stock, shipping, or lead-time commitments on the strength of this report alone.
What We Don't Know Yet
What remains uncertain: the excerpt identifies its sample and quantifies the changes, but it does not establish how representative those findings are of small press-on businesses, or what they imply for an individual sellerтАЩs sales and margins. Use your own results before making a substantial channel or inventory change.
