Retail & Consumer Goods
Retail and consumer goods companies continue to navigate a post-pandemic normalization in customer sentiment, with recent disclosures from City Chic Collective, Advance Auto Parts, and Naked Wines PLC illustrating the divergent fortunes of operators investing in customer experience versus those struggling with operational headwinds.
The headline
The Retail & Consumer Goods sector corpus now holds 521 scored canonical disclosures with a median Net Promoter Score of 72.0 and mean of 66.2. That median sits two points below the cross-sector corpus benchmark of 74, reflecting the thin margins and operational complexity inherent to retail and consumer-facing businesses where service failures translate immediately into detractor ratings. The sector's average trails its median by nearly six points, pulled down by a meaningful tail of operators in challenged sub-categories and turnaround situations.
Disclosure volume has grown steadily, with 108 new scores captured in 2026 to date—already double the full-year 2023 count—as both public retailers and direct-to-consumer brands embed NPS into investor communications and operational dashboards. The spread between top and bottom performers remains stark: elite scores at or near 100 coexist with a handful of deeply negative readings, underscoring the sector's bifurcation between experience-led winners and structurally challenged laggards.
NPS evolution
Sector medians rose from 54.0 in 2017 to a peak of 80.0 in 2023, then softened to 70.0 in 2026 year-to-date. The 2021–2023 plateau likely captured pandemic-era loyalty tailwinds and supply-chain tolerance; the subsequent retreat suggests customers have reset expectations as operations normalized and promotional intensity returned.
Disclosure volume
Annual disclosure counts climbed from single digits in the early 2010s to 61 in 2021, dipped through 2023, then surged to 108 in 2026 to date. The acceleration reflects both broader NPS adoption and the maturation of investor-relations practices that treat customer sentiment as a material operating metric alongside same-store sales and basket size.
Company stories
The turnarounds
Orange posted the largest absolute swing in the dataset, climbing 71 points from -35.0 in August 2017 to 36.0 in July 2026. That trajectory—from deeply negative to modestly positive—mirrors a multi-year operational overhaul in telecommunications retail. Macquarie Telecom followed a similar arc, rising 68 points from 7.0 in November 2017 to 75.0 by August 2021, demonstrating that sustained investment in service quality can materially shift customer advocacy even in commoditized categories.
The downside swings merit equal attention. Zomato fell 56 points from 84.0 in March 2018 to 28.0 in August 2021, a decline that coincided with rapid geographic expansion and the operational strain of hyperscale food delivery. Melita dropped 33 points from 61.0 in July 2021 to 28.0 in August 2026, reported alongside sustainability initiatives that may have diverted focus from core service delivery.
Recent momentum
Advance Auto Parts disclosed that its Net Promoter Score rose from the high 60s to nearly 80 points in Q2 2026, crediting improved in-store attachment rates and a tighter operational cadence. That 10+ point gain in a single quarter is rare for a brick-and-mortar retailer at scale and suggests a step-change in front-line execution. Similarly, Cell C improved from 19 to 33 during the fiscal year, a 14-point lift accompanying 1.3 million net subscriber additions and a 64 percent reduction in debt—evidence that financial restructuring and customer experience can reinforce one another when capital is redeployed to service infrastructure.
The negative tail
StubHub sits at the bottom of the corpus with a score of -100.0 disclosed in September 2025, a reflection of systemic friction in the secondary ticketing market where fees, delivery uncertainty, and fraud risk compound. Makro recorded -76.0 in September 2024, and Tim Hortons reported -49.0 in October 2023. Both operate in highly competitive, low-margin categories where service inconsistency and value perception quickly erode advocacy. Cracker Barrel disclosed -11.0 in August 2025, a negative reading in casual dining that points to broader challenges in traffic and brand relevance among younger cohorts.
Fresh in 2026
Recent disclosures highlight the breadth of NPS adoption across retail formats and geographies:
- City Chic Collective reported 76.0 in FY26 results alongside 92 percent EBITDA growth, crediting its 'Customer First' pillar for record customer numbers.
- Naked Wines PLC disclosed 77.0 with member retention at 76 percent, both improved, signaling strength in the direct-to-consumer wine model.
- West Carolina posted 83.0, described as one of the industry's leading scores.
- MTN Uganda reported a customer NPS of 92.0 alongside employee engagement NPS of 51.8.
- Temple & Webster registered 60.0 in FY26, slightly below the prior year's 61.0, a modest softening in the online furniture category.
- Marks & Spencer disclosed that its exclusive Tiqi seedless grapes recorded an NPS of 63.0, an unusual product-level metric that underscores the retailer's focus on differentiated fresh-food ranges.
Older nuggets worth a second look
- Pets at Home reached 88.0 in November 2015, up from 86 percent previously, during a phase of digital services expansion that prefigured the pet-care e-commerce boom.
- AO World reported scores exceeding 80.0 in November 2015, demonstrating that appliance e-commerce could achieve loyalty parity with specialist offline retailers.
- Vodacom disclosed 53.0 in November 2016, leading the South African market by 16 percentage points—a competitive gap that has since narrowed as rivals invested in network quality.
- Flipkart set a public goal of 55.0 by September 2016, an example of NPS being used as a forward-looking operational target rather than a trailing indicator.
- Myntra aimed to lift its score from 47.0 to 60.0 in August 2016 while pursuing a $1 billion GMV target, linking customer advocacy directly to growth objectives.
- OnePlus claimed an NPS of 74.2 for India in June 2017, a high-water mark for a smartphone brand in a price-sensitive, competitive market.