Last year, there was a huge shakeout in the UK’s retail landscape. Long-established names disappeared, hobbled by pandemic pressures, while a swath of digital-first players gained new customers.

How should businesses view these global trends and events? How are behaviors and spending changing? In this report, Insider Intelligence analysts weigh in on the questions they’re being asked by both clients and the media about the shifting landscape in key areas like digital advertising, retail and ecommerce, and financial services.

Before the pandemic, 84% of US adults shopped for groceries in stores, but as of June 2021, that number's slipped down to 70%.

Gen Z in the US already has estimated spending power of nearly $150 billion, and this cohort represents a growing opportunity for retailers and brands. Here’s a snapshot of recent Gen Z shopping and buying data to help guide you.

This report analyzes H1 2021 retail ecommerce sales figures for seven companies in Latin America, including Mercado Libre, Magazine Luiza, and Falabella. It also explores key trends that are helping to fuel ecommerce growth at each of these companies.

Retailers have a number of levers they can use to continue to engage shoppers in a challenging environment, including enabling consumers to purchase items in bulk, providing coupons or other price incentives, and/or private label or value brands or labels. The specific approach is less important than the objective—ensuring consumers don’t abandon the retailer for another less expensive merchant.

Next year in the UK, digital video ads will make gains, Brexit will continue to complicate ecommerce and data privacy rules, and retailers will reimagine the in-store experience.

More on this: For the past two years, consumers’ shopping behaviors have been characterized by pandemic-related concerns. While confidence had started to increase as concerns over the pandemic declined, Russia’s recent war on Ukraine combined with inflation has reversed that gain.

In Latin America in 2022, digital payments will make gains, consumer expectations around ecommerce will shift, corporate sustainability and social issues will come to the fore, SMBs will bank on social commerce, and retail media networks will make their presence felt.

Retail media advertising sits at the intersection of two major digital disruptions unfolding in Latin America: the meteoric rise of ecommerce and reallocation of ad dollars toward digital formats. While still nascent, retail media will play a larger part of brands’ marketing strategies in 2022.

The accessibility and affordability of digital brokerages lured retail investors en masse pre-pandemic, while market volatility and elevated consumer savings kept new user growth strong over the past two years. As consumer behavior settles after the height of the pandemic, US players can no longer rely on swaths of new users and elevated trading volumes to drive revenues.

This is especially true for food delivery, as the widespread return to in-person shopping and dining combined with inflation driving consumers to reassess their spending causes pandemic-era behaviors to fall by the wayside.

In Southeast Asia, total media ad spending snapped back to pre-pandemic levels in 2021 and will continue rising strongly this year. The growth in digital ad spending, though tamer in 2022, will again outpace that of the overall ad market.

That growth was driven by ecommerce, digital payment methods, and the addition of value-added services that help acquiring and processing players diversify their business. After a pandemic-driven slowdown, growth will return to a brisk 11.3% CAGR through 2025. Both banks and nonbanks can be merchant acquirers. Some acquiring banks, like Chase and U.S. Bank, perform merchant acquiring in-house.

The pandemic effect: As people’s pandemic-related precautions fade into the rearview mirror, nearly all food delivery companies are seeing their growth slow significantly for a variety of reasons, including more people returning to in-person dining, and rising inflation leading some to cut back on discretionary purchases such as food delivery.

The Pandemic Has Reshaped Consumer Behaviors and Expectations. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption and use of virtual and nontraditional health channels—especially amid concerns over catching the coronavirus in a clinic or hospital.

The pandemic has accelerated consumer adoption of QR codes. Here’s how marketers can take advantage of the technology.

Younger consumers in the UK continue to drive the digital conversation, but older age groups did some catching up during the pandemic. And these older consumers are attractive to marketers and brands by dint of their disposable income.

The news: PC sales are slumping now that the pandemic-driven buying spree is over. Why it’s worth watching: The International Data Corporation noted that global PC sales have declined 5.1% YoY in Q1 2022. The news comes on the heels of two years of double-digit growth, per The Register. The decline is a reflection of rising costs and market saturation after unprecedented demand.

Tripadvisor used conversational AI technology for a campaign executed on voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant with the goal of maintaining engagement during the pandemic, according to Adam Ochman, global head of marketing at Tripadvisor.