In summary. VeriFactu is the only trend with a legal deadline in 2026 for any company issuing invoices in Spain. After that, true omnichannel and operational automation offer the highest return to an SME. Odoo covers both natively. Advanced AI, cryptocurrencies, and the metaverse can wait or be discarded depending on your customer profile and business volume.
Spanish retail reaches 2026 with a packed agenda. There are tax obligations that cannot be delayed, changes in buyer behaviour that are already a reality, and technologies that promise a lot but do not yet have a clear business case for an SME. This article organises the seven main trends, explains what Odoo covers natively, what requires additional integration, and what should be directly shelved.
VeriFactu is mandatory in 2026 for all Spanish SMEs, while omnichannel and operational automation generate higher returns with Odoo.
What is VeriFactu and why is tax compliance not optional?
Royal Decree 1007/2023 obliges all Spanish companies that issue invoices to adapt to VeriFactu or an equivalent system. It is not a recommendation or a best practice: it is an obligation with its corresponding sanctioning regime set out in the BOE. If you operate in the Basque Country or Navarre, TicketBAI has its own calendar, but the logic is the same: verifiable and traceable invoicing.
Odoo has Spanish fiscal localisation with support for this standard. That means that, if you already use Odoo or are thinking of implementing it, VeriFactu compliance is part of the package, it's not a bespoke development you commission separately. It is one of the strongest arguments not to postpone the decision to modernise the management system.
The Tax Agency has made it clear that invoicing systems must generate records with a chained electronic footprint. Any ERP that does not include this by default for Spain will generate a problem for you sooner or later. Check that your current software covers it before assuming it does.
If you have doubts about how VeriFactu fits into your current sales flow, the first step is always an analysis of your actual situation. There is no generic answer valid for all SMEs.
What does it mean to have a truly omnichannel retail business?
Having a website and a physical shop is not omnichannel. Omnichannel means the customer buys online and returns in-store without anyone giving them a strange look. It means the stock is the same across all channels. It means the purchase history, regardless of the point of contact, appears in the same place when the sales assistant opens the customer's profile.
Odoo connects the physical point of sale and e-commerce on the same inventory. Cross-channel returns are managed from the same system. Click and Collect, which already has critical mass in Spain according to sector data collected by AECOC, can be activated without adding additional software layers.
Frictionless returns: the big differentiator
Returns are the moment of truth in retail. If it's easy, the customer returns. If it's an ordeal, they don't return and they tell others about it. An SME that manages returns on paper or in a separate Excel spreadsheet has a scaling problem that worsens with every incoming online order.
With Odoo, the return process automatically generates the inventory entry, the customer credit, and, if applicable, the tax credit note. Without intermediate manual steps that generate errors.
Click and Collect: the hybrid that already works
Buying online and collecting in-store reduces last-mile costs and increases in-person traffic. For the small retailer, it's an opportunity to convert that visit into an additional sale. The system must support it without friction, reserving stock at the time of the order and notifying the customer when it's ready.
Instant payments: Bizum yes, cryptocurrencies wait
Bizum has achieved real penetration in Spain. It's not an emerging trend, it's a consolidated reality that your POS should accept if it doesn't already. Younger consumers, in particular, use it naturally both in physical and online commerce.
BNPL (buy now, pay later) is gaining ground for medium and high-value purchases. Solutions like Aplazame or Sequra have integration with Spanish eCommerce platforms and can connect with Odoo. If you sell products with a ticket price above one hundred euros, it's worth evaluating if offering this option reduces your cart abandonment rate.
Cryptocurrencies are another story. The actual demand in Spanish physical retail is marginal. Unless your target customer actively and repeatedly requests it, there's no point investing time and resources in that integration right now. Monitor, but don't act yet.
Odoo supports QR payments, which includes compatibility with Bizum at the point of sale. Integrations with BNPL providers are viable through connectors available in the ecosystem. As always, the specific configuration depends on your current toolset and your payment processor.
When do sustainability and traceability move from trend to buyer's requirement?
The 2026 consumer, especially in urban and upper-middle-income segments, values knowing where what they buy comes from. This is not greenwashing: it is specific information about origin, certifications, and production conditions. And what cannot be measured, cannot be communicated.
Odoo allows you to add custom fields to products to collect traceability information: country of origin, supplier certifications, estimated carbon footprint if you have it. This does not replace official certification, which always comes from the accredited body, but it does allow you to have it centralised and visible both in the internal system and on your online shop's product page.
What Odoo doesn't do for you in sustainability
Odoo does not calculate the carbon footprint of your supply chain. That requires specific methodology and data from your suppliers, which they must provide. What it does do is give you the repository to store that information and the channel to communicate it to the customer. The sustainability strategy is yours; Odoo is the tool to operationalise it.
If your supplier already provides you with documentation on origin and certifications, you can incorporate it into the system without additional development. If they don't provide it, that's the first problem to solve, before the software.
Data and personalisation: responsible AI, not AI for everything
A well-fed CRM remains the best investment in personalisation for an SME. Before thinking about artificial intelligence, the question is whether you have clean and sufficient data. A CRM full of duplicate records, without real purchase history or coherent segmentation, does not improve with AI: it gets worse.
Odoo CRM and the integrated marketing tools allow you to segment the customer base by purchase behaviour, preferred channel, frequency and value. That's already useful personalisation, without the need for complex algorithms. A well-segmented email campaign to customers who bought a specific category three months ago outperforms a generic message sent to the entire base.
When AI makes sense in retail
AI has real applications in retail: demand prediction to optimise replenishment, detection of return patterns that indicate a size or product description problem, generation of product descriptions in multiple languages. These applications have measurable ROI.
What does not have a clear ROI for a Spanish SME right now: customer service chatbots without human supervision, automatic content generation without review, computer vision in physical stores. These are real technologies, but the cost of implementation and maintenance is not justified in most cases with SME volumes.
Odoo integrates AI tools for content generation and basic analysis. Use them as an assistant, always with human review. Not as a substitute for commercial judgement.
What is the real return of operational automation?
Automatic replenishment when stock falls below a threshold. The reminder to the customer that they have an abandoned cart. The alert to the team when a return has been unprocessed for more than X days. The notification to the supplier when a purchase order is generated. None of these actions are spectacular. All of them together save hours of manual work every week.
Odoo allows you to configure these automations without writing code. It's not magic: it requires someone to dedicate time to define the rules and test them. But once up and running, they work without continuous attention.
For an SME with a small team, this type of automation is where the investment is recovered sooner. Not in the most advanced functionality, but in eliminating repetitive tasks that consume time and generate errors.
What to automate first
A list ordered by typical impact in retail:
- Minimum stock alerts and generation of purchase proposals
- Automatic customer order confirmations
- Tracking of pending delivery orders
- Unprocessed return reminders
- Automatic customer segmentation by behaviour
- Sending of post-sale satisfaction survey
- Internal notifications when a VIP customer places an order
There's no need to activate everything at once. Start with what consumes most of your time today.
How to retain customers beyond the points programme?
A points programme alone will not retain customers in 2026. Customers accumulate points in ten different places and hardly redeem them. What retains them is the experience: that returns are easy, that the shop assistant knows who you are when you enter, that the digital gift card works without problems, that the subscription to a premium service has real value.
Odoo covers the technical pillars of customer loyalty: configurable loyalty programme, gift cards, subscription management, customer history accessible at the point of sale. The strategy of what to offer and how to communicate it is your decision. The system provides you with the basis to execute it.
A detail that makes a difference: the shop assistant in-store seeing the customer's online history before serving them. That moment of recognition is worth more than any discount. And it's possible when the physical store and eCommerce share the same management system.
Trends not to follow (yet)
Not all trends appearing in sectoral reports are relevant to your business now. These are the ones that generate the most noise and offer the least ROI to a Spanish SME in 2026:
- NFT in retail: no real demand from the average Spanish consumer. Very specific business case.
- B2C Metaverse: the market has not matured enough to justify SME investment.
- Unsupervised generative AI: the reputational risk of incorrect content outweighs the time saving if there is no human review.
- Cryptocurrencies as a main payment method: marginal volume in Spain except for very specific niches.
- Augmented reality in-store: hardware and integration cost hardly justifiable except in luxury retail or large-scale retail.
Monitoring these trends makes sense. Investing time and money in them now, for most Spanish SMEs, does not.
How to prioritise if you're starting from scratch?
If your current management system doesn't cover the basics and you're thinking of making the leap to Odoo, the order of priority has clear logic:
First, tax compliance: VeriFactu does not tolerate delay. Second, unified inventory: without reliable stock, nothing else works well. Third, basic omnichannel: connecting the physical store and the online one on the same system. Fourth, automation of the most repetitive tasks. Fifth, CRM and customer loyalty with real data.
The most advanced trends (AI, certified sustainability, alternative payments) come later, when the foundation is solid. Trying to build upon deficient operational management is the most common and most expensive mistake in retail digitalisation projects.
If you already use Sage, Holded or another ERP and are thinking of migrating to Odoo, the migration process is the ideal time to review what data you clean, what processes you redesign and what automations you activate from day one.
Frequently asked questions
Does VeriFactu affect all retailers or just some?
It affects all Spanish companies and self-employed individuals who issue invoices and are not covered by the module regime or the special agricultural regime. If you sell with an invoice, it affects you. If you only issue sales receipts to the final consumer and do not invoice, the situation is different but it is advisable to review your specific case with your accounting firm and your software provider. The BOE contains the exact conditions in RD 1007/2023.
Is Odoo suitable for a small shop with few products?
Yes. Odoo scales both up and down. A shop with few items can benefit from the same system as a chain with several points of sale, simply by using the functionalities it needs. The advantage is that you don't change systems if the business grows. The suitability analysis depends on your specific operations, not just the number of products.
What happens if I already have a loyalty programme in another system?
Loyalty data migration is technically viable: accumulated points, redemption history, customer segments. The complexity depends on the format of this data and whether the source system allows exporting it. In any implementation project, this point is analysed from the beginning so as not to lose the work accumulated with your customers.
Is custom development necessary to connect Odoo with my current POS?
It depends on the POS model and the provider. Odoo has its own point of sale module, which many retailers adopt directly. If you already have specific hardware you are happy with, connectors are available for the most common models in Spain. Compatibility assessment is part of the pre-implementation analysis.
Which retail business model benefits most from Odoo?
In Nextdoo's experience with Spanish retail, the profiles that benefit most are those with simultaneous physical and online sales, those who manage stock across multiple warehouses or shops, and those who want to consolidate what is currently spread across disconnected tools into a single system. Fashion retail, hardware stores, specialist food, sports, opticians: the common denominator is the need for unified visibility.
How long does an Odoo implementation for retail take?
It depends on the scope, the volume of data to migrate, and the complexity of the processes. A basic implementation can be up and running within a reasonable timeframe; a project with multiple shops, integrations with marketplaces, and full historical migration takes longer. The prior analysis determines the actual scope and indicative timeframe for your specific case.
Conclusion: act by order of urgency, not by order of novelty
Retail 2026 has a lot of noise and few real urgencies. The real urgency is VeriFactu. The rest are opportunities with varying degrees of maturity and different ROI depending on your business type.
Odoo covers most trends that have a clear business case for a Spanish SME: tax compliance, omnichannel, payments, automation, loyalty. Those it doesn't cover natively, it covers with integrations. Those that don't yet have a clear business case should not be pursued simply because they appear in industry reports.
If you want to know which part of this map applies to your specific situation, the next step is a no-obligation conversation with someone who knows both Odoo and Spanish retail. That is exactly what we do at Nextdoo.
Indicative information. Actual timeframes, costs and scopes are confirmed after a personalised analysis. JLM Business Solutions SL · B16842831.
Frequently asked questions
Does VeriFactu affect all retailers or just some?
It affects all Spanish companies and self-employed individuals who issue invoices and are not covered by the module regime or the special agricultural regime. If you sell with an invoice, it affects you. If you only issue sales receipts to the end consumer and do not invoice, the situation is different, but it is advisable to check with your consultancy and your software provider. The BOE outlines the exact conditions in RD 1007/2023.
Is Odoo suitable for a small shop with few products?
Yes. Odoo scales both up and down. A shop with few items can benefit from the same system as a chain with several points of sale, using only the functionalities it needs. The main advantage is that you don't change systems if the business grows. The actual suitability depends on your specific operations, not just the number of products.
What happens if I already have a loyalty programme in another system?
Loyalty data migration is technically viable: accumulated points, redemption history, customer segments. The complexity depends on the format of this data and whether the source system allows exporting it. In any well-planned implementation project, this point is analysed from the beginning so as not to lose the work accumulated with your customers.
Which trends should SMEs avoid following in 2026?
Those that generate the most noise and least real ROI for a Spanish SME are: NFTs in retail, B2C metaverse, generative AI without human supervision, cryptocurrencies as a primary payment method, and augmented reality in-store. Monitoring makes sense; investing time and money in them now, for most SMEs, does not.
Is custom development necessary to connect Odoo with the current POS?
It depends on the POS model and the provider. Odoo has its own integrated point of sale, which many retailers adopt directly. If you already have hardware you are happy with, connectors are available for the most common models in Spain. Compatibility assessment is part of the pre-implementation analysis.
Where to start if the current management system doesn't cover the basics?
The order of priority has a clear logic: first, tax compliance with VeriFactu; second, unified inventory; third, connection between physical and online shops; fourth, automation of repetitive tasks; fifth, CRM and loyalty with real data. Trying to build advanced functionalities on deficient operational management is the most common and expensive mistake in retail digitalisation.