54% of digital shoppers would choose store credit over a cash refund if they got a bonus, like $105 in credit for a $100 return, according to an August survey from Narvar.
On today's podcast episode, we give out our '2025 Retail Awards' for the 'Must-Visit Store of the Year', 'Glow-Up of the Year', 'AI Power Move', 'Collab of the Year', and 'Campaign of the Year'. Listen to the discussion with Vice President of Content and host Suzy Davidkhanian, Senior Analyst Blake Droesch, and Analysts Arielle Feger and Rachel Wolff.
Brands that offer real-time updates and hassle-free refunds can turn theft frustrations into loyalty wins.
Tailoring marketing to Gen Alpha is proving critical for brands looking to capitalize on their emerging influence.
As consumers become adept at ignoring ads, avoiding dreaded ad fatigue requires brands to prioritize creativity and interactivity.
Industry leaders believe 2026 will be about the evolution of shopping. Consumers have changed the way they discover products and consider purchases, whether on social media or through genAI-powered conversational searches. In the upcoming year, retailers will be leveraging data to support more relevant in-store experiences and adapt dynamically to individual shopper journeys. Here are some important ways that marketing experts see this happening.
Retailers faced a challenging year as economic factors, new technologies, and changing consumer behaviors reshaped the landscape. Here are our top five stories from this past year and what they meant to a tumultuous industry.
Shoppers spent more online and in stores, but rising debt and weak confidence hint at strain.
Temu and Shein face a highly uncertain future, with both at the mercy of global trade policies amid growing tensions over ultra-cheap Chinese exports.
"Creativity is not just a nice-to-do activity, but in fact, it's something that is a critical life skill for kids and an incredible kind of a joyful moment of expression for adults," said Victoria Lozano, CMO at Crayola, on a recent “Behind the Numbers” podcast. For more than 120 years, Crayola has been woven into childhoods. Now in the second year of its "Campaign For Creativity," the iconic brand is expanding its mission beyond art supplies to position creativity as an essential skill for today's digital-native children.
In 2025, retail media found itself at a turning point as networks, advertisers, and platforms pushed into new territory and redefined what the channel could be. Here are five of our top stories from the year, from the challenges of tracking CTV campaigns to the evolving competitive landscape shaped by Amazon, Walmart, and a wave of innovative smaller networks.
Consumers traded down or tapped out throughout 2025, making value deals essential for restaurant survival.
Here are four “Reimagining Retail” episodes to queue up for your holiday travel.
Retailers with a well-defined identity delivered strong growth in 2025.
While we were right that retailers would offer richer in-store experiences to attract shoppers, we were wrong about how Amazon, discount retailers, and dollar stores would evolve their physical and digital strategies. From AI tools that stayed online to unfulfilled marketplace ambitions, here’s how we did with our 2025 predictions.
Platforms like ChatGPT are influencing more purchases, with sales forecast to hit $144 billion by 2029.
Gift cards remain a resilient holiday staple, valued for convenience and budget control, even as rising fraud concerns prompt retailers to bolster security measures and consumer warnings.
Chase Sapphire Reserve will offer an exclusive FIFA World Cup ticket sale for cardholders in February 2026, per Chase. Offers connected to major events with deep fanbases can create valuable sign-up opportunities and positive brand associations for issuers. To maintain these new cardholders’ loyalty, issuers should consider integrating experiential rewards during the games—lounge opportunities, fast-pass check-in lanes, interactive pop-ups—to funnel users through multiple value-driven experiences over the duration of the tournament.
Walmart’s OnePay adopted Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) to drive agentic commerce as a credentialled provider, per a press release. With Chrome remaining consumer’s most popular browser, Gemini is narrowing the gap with ChatGPT as the most used chatbot: We forecast that by 2029, Gemini will hold 53% of genAI market share. That in turn could give Google’s AP2 a large share of agent-driven consumer spend in the long term, as consumers develop loyalty and use patterns around AI platforms.
Artificial intelligence is working its way into every facet of the US economy, and the payments industry is no exception. While the changes to consumers’ payment behavior will be gradual, providers need to act now, according to our 2026 AI in the Payments Customer Life Cycle report. Providers need to overcome critical issues like data fragmentation, but a well executed AI strategy can help providers maintain control over product discovery and streamline checkout.