On today’s podcast episode, we discuss what Crayola is aiming to achieve with its “Campaign for Creativity,” how the brand guides children from digital creation to hands-on creative play, and what’s top of mind for the art supplies company as it heads into the holiday season. Listen to the discussion with Vice President of Content and host Suzy Davidkhanian, Principal Analyst Sky Canaves, and Crayola Chief Marketing Officer Victoria Lozano.
2025 challenged many of retail’s long-held assumptions. What looked like familiar patterns often turned out to be something different entirely, and in the process, a few key trends were either missed or misread by brands trying to make sense of shifting shopper behavior. Here are three trends from 2025 that were either overlooked or misunderstood, and why they will matter in the year ahead.
Online return volumes dipped 2.5% YoY early in the holiday season, though momentum slowed after Cyber Week and a surge is still expected post-Christmas, consistent with retailers’ forecasts that returns will represent 15.8% of annual sales. To curb costly returns, merchants are improving product detail pages and adopting tools like virtual try-on, while many are also adding return fees—moves that risk dampening demand as shoppers grow wary of stricter policies. A smoother, more supportive returns experience remains critical, as most consumers hesitate to buy when returns seem difficult and reward retailers that make the process easy and fast.
UK holiday spending is expected to rise 3.5% this year, according to PwC, with average spending per shopper projected to increase 2.7%, driven in part by younger consumers planning to increase their budgets. Beneath the surface, however, the outlook is less robust. After accounting for inflation, sales volumes are likely to be flat or slightly negative, as most shoppers expect to spend the same amount as last year, and higher prices shape behavior. Tepid consumer confidence and rising living costs are pushing households to manage spending more carefully, a dynamic likely to carry over into 2026 and increase pressure on retailers to deliver clear value.
Walmart wants discretion to refuse cards based on their issuer at the point-of-sale, per an objection filed in response to the proposed settlement to end the decadeslong interchange fee legal battle. While new types of fee agreements with banks remain entirely speculative at this point, it’s unclear whether a patchwork quilt of deals with issuers would benefit Walmart. Discontinuing acceptance of certain issuers at the POS will likely cause just as much friction for consumers as the purportedly “useless” changes to the honor all cards rule, especially if Walmart stands alone in its issuer blacklist.
General Mills reports that lower- and middle-income consumers remain financially strained, driving more at-home eating and increased reliance on promotions while trimming discretionary purchases like wet dog food. In response, the company is boosting product innovation by 25% and sharpening pricing to compete with lower-cost alternatives, with early wins such as Cheerios Protein gaining meaningful market share. Despite a tough environment, General Mills outperformed expectations in FYQ2, a sign that its adaptive strategy is gaining traction, though our team notes that CPG brands must continue innovating and pricing smartly to maintain share amid ongoing consumer pressure.
Over one-third of Gen Z (39%) and millennials (34%) who have used genAI tools to check symptoms report that they would put off seeing a doctor if the AI told them their issue was low-risk, according to an October 2025 poll from The Mesothelioma Center at Asbestos.com conducted by SurveyMonkey. Overrelying on AI for medical guidance carries real risk, especially as models are still maturing and sometimes produce faulty information. AI companies should add explicit in-chat disclaimers against being used as a replacement for medical care and strengthen guardrails to block unvetted or potentially harmful health advice.
"The retail media landscape is only becoming more crowded, but Target's guest insights are often cited as a key differentiator," said our analyst Sarah Marzano during EMARKETER's recent Commerce Media Summit.
As consumers grow more comfortable with using AI, retail industry leaders see 2026 as a pivotal year in shaping how the emerging technology disrupts the way people shop.
Later has transformed from a scheduling tool into a full-scale creator-commerce engine. One year after acquiring Mavely, the combined platform is processing more than $2.4 billion in annualized GMV and has paid out over $250 million to creators. During Black Friday–Cyber Monday alone, creators drove $50 million in sales through Later and Mavely systems. With link-in-bio tools, affiliate rails, workflow software, and AI-powered attribution stitched into one stack, Later now acts as a performance channel for brands like Southwest and Bissell. Its EdgeAI engine ties creator posts to SKU-level results, reflecting a broader shift toward creator marketing as a full-funnel, revenue-driving discipline.
Consumer spending held up in October, despite broader signs of growing strain on lower- and middle-income consumers. Retail sales rose 3.5% YoY, according to the US Commerce Department. Control group sales—which exclude food services, autos, building materials stores, and gas stations, and are used to calculate GDP—increased 0.8% MoM, the biggest rise in four months. However, the US economy appears increasingly fragile. While spending is growing at a healthy pace for now—largely due to higher-income households with a greater capacity to absorb higher prices and a stronger appetite for discretionary purchases—a softening labor market and tariff-driven inflation could push consumers to pull back next year.
Home Depot introduced The Home Depot Creator Portal, a centralized hub that offers resources and earning opportunities for creators developing home improvement content. The creator portal is intended to inspire creators while giving them access to advertising opportunities with Home Depot and its extensive supplier network. More retailers are setting up their own creator platforms as they look to tap into influencer marketing and ensure relevance as more product discovery shifts to social media. Establishing a creator platform allows retailers to bring greater standardization and quality control to their influencer partnerships, while still taking advantage of all the opportunities that influencer marketing can offer.
Klarna launched the Agentic Product Protocol, an open standard that makes products on the internet discoverable and understandable by AI agents, per a press release. All payment providers need to meet consumer demand for AI-powered commerce that allows them to save time and money on shopping. However, to speed up adoption of agent-driven checkout, platforms need to ensure safety and privacy with AI agent transactions: 65.5% of US consumers still have misgivings about agent-led payments, per Omnisend.
PayPal filed to form PayPal Bank with the FDIC and Utah Department of Financial Institutions. Banks and credit unions should anticipate expanded interest-bearing offerings from PayPal Pay Later if its license is approved. And PayPal has a built-in advantage because its buy button and credit underwriting can all happen during the checkout process—whereas banks and credit unions have to rely on consumers applying for a loan well before they intend to complete a transaction. Credit unions should emphasize their competitive interest rates to consumers choosing between their loan products or a PayPal loan.
Visa will offer stablecoin settlement in Circle’s USDC for its US network, per a press release. Visa and Mastercard are investing in crypto to preserve their dominance in the US payment ecosystem. Crypto-based payments have been slow to catch on in the US—we forecast just 1.8% of US adults will transact with crypto this year. It’s unclear which components of crypto will enter the mainstream, so a strategy like Visa’s, where it invests in everything from stablecoin-issuing sandboxes and crypto settlement to cards that transact over traditional rails but pay out rewards in crypto, could position it to maintain its edge wherever crypto catches on.
The global transition to electric vehicles is losing momentum as both policymakers and automakers scale back ambitions. The EU is retreating from its 2035 combustion-engine phaseout, while Ford is pausing F-150 Lightning production and redirecting resources toward hybrids after steep EV losses. Demand has softened as incentives expire in the US and Europe and regulatory pressure eases under the Trump administration. With affordability and range anxiety still major consumer hurdles, EV share is projected to slip to 6% next year, signaling a far slower transition than industry leaders once expected.
Looma raised $10 million in Series B funding and a $3 million credit facility to expand its network of 7,000 in-store screens, which now reaches 27 million shoppers monthly across major grocers such as Kroger and H-E-B. Its recent rollout to 600 Kroger wine and spirits departments followed a multiyear test that boosted category sales and delivered strong returns for featured brands. Although in-store retail media is scaling more slowly than expected, grocery remains a key proving ground, with most retailers planning activations. Success will hinge on solutions that pair broad reach with measurable sales lift—an area where Looma’s early results stand out.
The FDA sent warning letters to four major retailers that continued to sell baby formula linked to a botulism outbreak after the products were recalled in early November. As retailers move deeper into health and wellness, their daily operations need to support the image they’re trying to build.
Samsung Ads announced an integration with Amazon Publisher Cloud that connects Samsung’s advertising system with Amazon’s in-depth ad data tools. Ad campaigns can now deliver broader reach and more relevant messaging by pairing Samsung’s Smart TV audience data with Amazon’s streaming, shopping, and browsing insights. As the CTV and Smart TV spaces rapidly expand, advertisers still struggle to reach viewers with the same level of targeting and measurement available on digital platforms. Brands operating within Samsung’s ad ecosystem can now tap into Amazon’s advanced audience insights to more precisely reach consumers who may have previously overlooked their ads.