5 Critical Supply Chain Insights from RILA LINK 2026 That Retail Leaders Can’t Ignore

The energy at RILA LINK 2026 in Orlando this week has been electric. From Nick Saban’s powerful keynote on avoiding “the complacency of success” to deep-dive sessions on AI-driven logistics and supply chain resilience, retail’s top supply chain minds gathered to tackle the industry’s most pressing challenges.

At Inspectorio, we attended dozens of sessions and countless conversations on the expo floor. What emerged was a clear picture: the future of retail supply chains depends on one critical dynamic: converting visibility to action. Not just visibility into sourcing and logistics operations trends and signals, but the insights necessary to act decisively on this data across partners, processes, and business units.

Here are five key themes from RILA LINK 2026 that are reshaping how forward-thinking retailers and brands approach their supply chains in 2026:

1. Supplier Alignment: The Missing Link in Inventory Efficiency

One of the most eye-opening discussions at RILA centered on how better transparency between retailers, brands, and suppliers can dramatically improve product flow through the supply chain.

A prime example came from sessions highlighting the importance of guiding suppliers on product packaging formats before arrival at distribution centers. When suppliers understand exactly how product needs to be packaged for different sales channels, whether retail stores, e-commerce fulfillment, or direct-to-consumer, the efficiency gains are substantial.

The Inspectorio Take: This isn’t just about packaging specs in a PDF. It’s about creating real-time, collaborative workflows where suppliers see the same requirements, understand channel-specific needs, and can adjust proactively. Cross-functional visibility platforms enable this level of coordination, turning what’s traditionally been a game of telephone into a synchronized operation.

2. The Returns Crisis: Why Product Quality Still Matters Most

Monday’s sessions tackled the ever-accelerating trend of e-commerce returns and its mounting cost impact on retail operations. While much of the discussion rightfully focused on consumer fraud and accountability for unsustainable returning practices, one critical factor was conspicuously absent from most conversations: product quality.

Returns aren’t just a customer service issue or a reverse logistics challenge. They’re often a product quality problem hiding in plain sight. When products don’t meet expectations, don’t fit properly, or arrive defective, consumers return them.

The Inspectorio Take: Upstream quality management is the most effective returns prevention strategy that retailers aren’t talking about enough. By ensuring rigorous quality inspections at the source, brands can catch issues before products ship, reducing return rates while improving customer satisfaction. The ROI on quality programs becomes even more compelling when you factor in the full cost of returns: reverse logistics, restocking labor, markdown losses, and damaged brand reputation.

3. Upstream Visibility: The 48-Hour Blind Spot Problem

Perhaps the most striking moment at RILA came from a distribution center director who shared a troubling reality: he only knew what product was arriving at his facility 48 hours before it showed up. 

In an era where retailers talk endlessly about agility and omnichannel excellence, supply chain leaders are still operating with a two-day visibility window on inbound inventory. This limitation cripples their ability to efficiently allocate product across retail and e-commerce channels, optimize labor planning, and manage capacity.

Multiple sessions emphasized the importance of cross-functional visibility to optimize time-to-market, margin control, and inventory sell-through. Sally Gilligan, Chief Supply Chain and Transformation Officer at Gap, delivered one of the conference’s standout sessions on Monday, arguing that visibility from “factory floor to front door” allows supply chain leaders to understand the cascading impacts of strategic sourcing decisions on complex, global supply chains.

The Inspectorio Take: Platforms that support cross-functional sourcing and supply chain operations across the entire partner ecosystem become game-changers. When merchandising, sourcing, quality, logistics, and planning teams all work from the same real-time data shared with suppliers and 3PLs, those 48-hour blind spots disappear. DC managers can prepare for arrivals weeks in advance, optimize deconsolidation strategies, and route product to the right channels faster.

4. Trade Uncertainty: The New Normal Requires New Capabilities

If there was one topic that permeated every hallway conversation and coffee break, it was tariffs and trade policy uncertainty.

Sung Chang, Vice President of International Trade at RILA, made a blunt prediction: tariffs are here to stay, regardless of upcoming Supreme Court rulings. More importantly, he forecasted that tariffs would become more sectorally focused, targeting specific sub components and materials like microchips and rare earth minerals, allowing trade policy to move with more agility than broad-based agreements.

As Gap’s Sally Gilligan emphasized in her session, Gap is focused in 2026 on improving network capacity and building in flexibility to respond to disruptions or opportunities with resilience and agility.

The Inspectorio Take: This evolving dynamic will force retailers and brands to develop unprecedented transparency into chemical management and restricted substance compliance, product testing results and certifications, and component points of origin and material traceability.

Without systems that track these details at the SKU and component level across thousands of suppliers, brands will struggle to remain compliant as trade policies shift rapidly. The winners will be those who can quickly identify which products are affected by new tariffs, trace components back to origin, and pivot sourcing strategies without disrupting delivery timelines.

5. AI and Automation: Moving Beyond the Hype

While AI dominated the conference agenda, the most valuable discussions focused on practical implementation rather than future possibilities. 

Boston Consulting Group’s session on “Preparing for an AI-Driven Supply Chain” highlighted emerging agentic capabilities that enable more autonomous planning, scenario simulation, and faster response to changing demand. But the real breakthroughs are happening when AI is applied to the messy, complex data that exists across fragmented supply chain systems.

The Inspectorio Take: AI is most powerful when it has clean, comprehensive data to work with. For retailers and brands, this means AI initiatives must be built on foundations of supply chain visibility: quality data captured at the source, standardized across suppliers, and accessible across functions.

The Through-Line: Visibility Powers Everything

One theme connects every challenge discussed: the critical need for end-to-end supply chain insights that can trigger cross functional actions that drive holistic business value.

Whether it’s coordinating with suppliers on packaging, preventing quality-driven returns, planning DC operations, navigating trade policy, or enabling AI, none of it works without transparent, real-time data shared across the entire ecosystem.

Nick Saban’s opening keynote warned against “relief syndrome,” the dangerous comfort that comes after achieving success. His message to avoid complacency resonates powerfully for supply chain leaders. The retailers and brands that will thrive aren’t those satisfied with incremental improvements to legacy processes. They’re the ones willing to fundamentally rethink how information flows through their supply chains.

At Inspectorio, we’re energized by the conversations we had this week and grateful to the supply chain leaders who shared their challenges, strategies, and vision for the future. The path forward is clear: build visibility, enable collaboration, and turn supply chain data into competitive advantage.

Inspectorio helps global retailers and brands achieve end-to-end supply chain visibility through our connected platform for quality management, supplier collaboration, and compliance. Learn more at inspectorio.com.