The 2026 International Housewares Association Chief Housewares Executive SuperSession (CHESS) opened September 29 with industry leaders examining the forces shaping the next phase of growth for the home and housewares business.
Day 1 sessions explored the changing consumer and retail landscape, emerging opportunities for growth and the expanding role of artificial intelligence in business strategy and decision-making.
CHESS is sponsored by Pattern, Creative Planning, Seel, LaTeam, Monk Tree Partners, Wholescale, ShipSigma and Circana.
Read a recap of the day-one sessions at CHESS:
Housewares Hot Seat: Case Studies in AI
Melissa Ledbetter, VP, E-Commerce Sales & Marketing; Michael Karyo, Senior VP, Prepara
Two housewares industry insiders (pictured above) took the stage for the Housewares Hot Seat to share how they have integrated AI into their businesses. They covered what worked, what hasn’t, and how the technology is enabling them to optimize their organizations for success.
“Claude has become a good friend of mine,” said Michael Karyo, Prepara senior vice president. With a small team, Karyo said AI has been extremely helpful by quickly aligning data from two different software platforms designed for accounting and inventory.
Melissa Ledbetter, vice president, e-commerce sales & marketing for Kuhn Rikon Corp., shared that her company recently acquired a large baking brand with over 200 SKUs. She used AI – ChatGPT is her preferred agent – to see how Kuhn could pare down the assortment and best position it for the U.S. market. “What started as a very daunting task all of a sudden became very manageable,” she said.
On design, Karyo explained that his team uses AI somewhat for preliminary ideation or to put together initial color schemes, textures, or materials. But their designers still do the heavy lifting of bringing new designs to life. Kayro also uses AI to make basic asset adjustments, so they don’t have to rely on their design team and can “give them more bandwidth” to design more products and improve existing ones.
When asked about organizational guardrails or policies, Ledbetter said she reminds her small team all the time that AI is “not perfect whatsoever.” “Use your logic,” she tells them. “Call out Allie (her chatbot’s name) when she’s wrong. Use your expertise and experience, and don’t take it as the gospel.”
At Prepara, “I really want staff to understand what they’re inputting before they input it,” said Kayro, pointing out that he doesn’t want his team to get overly dependent on AI and have it do the thinking for them.
Where Growth Lives: Insights Into Consumer Demand, the Future of Housewares and AI-Powered Analytics
As economic pressures continue to influence how consumers spend, Circana sees opportunities for growth in home and housewares as demand shifts across consumers, price points and shopping channels.
Joe Derochowski, vice president, home industry advisor at Circana (pictured above), examined the economic forces shaping household spending and where new demand could emerge. He was joined by Bob Bird, executive vice president and general manager of Liquid AI at Circana, who explored how artificial intelligence is changing the way companies access and analyze market insights.
Derochowski acknowledged consumers remain under pressure. Consumer prices increased 3.4% year over year in August, while credit card balances reached $1.26 trillion in the second quarter, up 4% from a year earlier. Food-at-home prices increased 2.2%, compared with a 3.4% increase for food away from home, reinforcing the opportunity around consumers preparing more meals at home.
But that pressure is not necessarily pushing housewares shoppers toward the lowest-priced products. Circana reported the mainstream price tier gained 1.4 points of unit share in housewares during the six months ended June, while the value tier lost 0.8 points. Mainstream products represented 50% of housewares unit share. Circana also reported that 57% of small appliance subcategories grew in units during the latest four-week period.
“There is no other industry I would rather be in than our industry for the next several years,” Derochowski said.
He identified essentials, replacement purchases, joy, health and wellness, socially inspired purchases, office needs and weather among the key drivers of consumer spending in 2026. Derochowski also pointed to households earning more than $100,000 and older consumers as important growth opportunities, noting the increasing spending power of adults 50 and older.
How consumers discover and purchase products is also changing. Pure-play e-commerce remained the largest channel for small appliances and housewares, accounting for 44% of dollar share, but lost 0.6 points of share year-to-date through August. Mass, club, home furnishings and dollar channels gained share.
Derochowski also pointed to the growing influence of social media, TikTok Shop and AI-powered search on product discovery and purchasing.
“The ability to create demand from social media is critical,” Derochowski said. “The power to create demand is critical.”
Bird concluded the session by looking at how AI-powered analytics could change how companies use market information to make decisions. Companies often spend significant time analyzing what has already happened or waiting for information to be assembled before making a decision, he said. AI can help shorten that process, giving decision-makers more time to look forward and act on insights.
AI Leadership Lab No. 1: The New Front Door to Product Discovery
David Rapps, Founder & CEO, Wholescale; Christina Browning, Senior Manager, Marketplace Business Development, Best Buy
David Rapps of Wholescale sat down with Christina Browning of Best Buy Marketplace to discuss Best Buy’s one-year-old digital marketplace and the importance of having a strong base of credible reviews.
Best Buy Marketplace is a closed marketplace, which Browning – who serves as the retailer’s senior manager, marketplace business development – said is important to the company’s strategy and relationship with its customers.
“Trust is really important for customers, and especially to the Best Buy customer,” she explained. For that reason, “We’re being really intentional about how we’re growing the platform and preserving that trust.”
Housewares and small appliances are a natural extension of what Best Buy shoppers are coming in and buying, she added. Small appliances are selling really well on their marketplace, ranking in the top five categories for both size and growth.
One of their top-selling products is admittedly low-tech – dryer balls that help separate clothes, improve warm air circulation, and reduce drying time. One of their top unit drivers a few weeks ago was premium cutting boards, she shared.
Browning and Rapps, who serves as founder & CEO of Wholescale, also discussed the power of reviews on a marketplace platform and stressed the trust-building connection between a strong base of product reviews and the AI bots that are reading them.
Best Buy is “really leveraging AI to be that trusted voice and advisor,” said Browning, whether through outside agents customers may use to start their purchase journey or reviews found directly on its marketplace. She explained that getting customers to purchase once on their site relies heavily on these ratings and reviews.
Best Buy now works with Wholescale to collect and distribute authentic ratings and reviews. Authentic reviews matter not only to Best Buy’s mission to build and maintain customer trust, but also to AI visibility.
AI systems prioritize unincentivized, explained reviews. His company helps retailers and brands collect authentic post-purchase reviews from actual customers and transfer them to a marketplace platform.
Retail Pulse & Outlook
Dennis Cantalupo, CEO, Pulse Ratings
Despite continued pressure on household finances, the retail industry remains relatively healthy, with stronger operators positioned to gain ground as consumers focus more on value, according to Pulse Ratings CEO Dennis Cantalupo.
He pointed to recent earnings calls from Macy’s, Kohl’s, Albertsons and Burlington, among others, that highlighted persistent pressure from inflation and higher costs for everyday expenses.
The environment is widening the gap between retailers, Cantalupo said. Stronger companies have more flexibility to adjust prices and absorb costs to stay competitive, while financially weaker retailers have fewer options.
Consumers, meanwhile, continue to face several financial headwinds. Revolving consumer credit reached $1.36 trillion in July, compared with a 2001-2025 average of $954 billion, while the personal savings rate was 3%, below its historical average of 5.8%. Credit card interest rates reached 21% in the second quarter.
Higher gasoline prices are adding to the pressure. Cantalupo estimated about $40 billion in consumer spending shifted to gasoline through June, redirecting dollars that otherwise could have gone toward discretionary purchases.
Still, retail sales are outpacing inflation, and recent retailer results have generally held up. Cantalupo noted most of the retailers examined by Pulse Ratings either raised or maintained their outlooks following first-half results, although second-quarter earnings for several companies benefited from tariff refunds.
Off-price retailers are among those benefiting from the current environment as consumers become more deliberate about value. Cantalupo pointed to market share shifting away from traditional department stores toward TJX, Burlington and Ross Stores. Since 2018, the off-price retailers included in Pulse Ratings’ analysis collectively added $32.5 billion in revenue, while Kohl’s and JCPenney posted a combined $13.8 billion decline.
Holiday spending is expected to provide another test. Pulse Ratings forecast holiday retail sales to increase 4.1% to $1.41 trillion, while the average shopper plans to spend $737, up nearly 12% year over year. Some 31% of consumers expect to increase their holiday budgets, although 51% of those shoppers attributed the increase to higher prices.
For retailers, Cantalupo said, the environment continues to come down to balancing price and profitability while maintaining the value consumers increasingly expect.
AI Leadership Lab No. 2: Applying an AI Layer for Optimum Operations
The conference’s second AI leadership lab focused on maximizing team performance and value. Rohan Shah, founder & CEO of Faster Wholesale, led a demo and explained his company’s AI platform, which can support housewares suppliers’ day-to-day workflows to help them maximize sales and profits.
“All we think about day in and day out is how we can help people like you be more efficient,” said Shah. “We want you to spend your time on things that really move the business.”
Their platform allows companies to leverage AI to assist teams with customer service, quoting, order entry, product data, reporting and more, while allowing humans to focus their time and energy on the things that matter: relationships, people and reputation.
In addition to utilizing structured data such as pricing information, orders and inventory reports, Faster Wholesale puts unstructured data sources to work in order to maximize results. These unstructured sources include Teams and Slack threads, email conversations, and meeting or call notes.
“We spent a lot of time thinking about how we could mine unstructured data sources to really bring some magic to this,” said Shah. “The real gold is in the conversations.”
Because the platform utilizes a treasure trove of information, Shah stressed the importance of guardrails – and the fact that their platform is private and encrypted, and doesn’t require inputting data into public AI models.
“It’s a secure enclave that allows you to benefit from the power of AI without giving up the house to all these massive companies,” he pointed out.
The platform also allows companies to control employee access to data, e.g., a rep sees their accounts, not the whole book, and customer service sees orders, not margins.
