Business Insider Intelligence research analyst Daniel Keyes, eMarketer principal analyst Andrew Lipsman and senior forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence Cindy Liu discuss how Walmart, Target, Best Buy, The Home Depot, eBay, Etsy and Kohl's are doing and what their performances tell us about the changing US shopper.

eMarketer junior analyst Blake Droesch, research analyst Daniel Keyes, principal analyst Andrew Lipsman and senior forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence Cindy Liu discuss Pinterest's latest social commerce moves. They then talk about May retail sales, an app that makes you the model, Shopify's latest deal with Walmart and a Brandless relaunch.

It’s little surprise that Amazon once again ranks as the No. 1 US ecommerce retailer—and by a huge margin. “What’s surprising is that despite accounting for nearly four in 10 ecommerce dollars, the company continues to gain market share and extend its lead,” said Andrew Lipsman, eMarketer principal analyst and author of our latest report, "Top 10 US Ecommerce Companies 2020: Walmart and Target Climb Rankings on Click-and-Collect Gains."

Amid 2020’s grim retail environment, ecommerce stands out as a bright spot. By now, the story is well known: US buyers have turned to online retailers like Amazon and Walmart in record numbers, mostly to avoid shopping in crowded places or because their local stores were closed.

And it scaled its online and in-person sales to 20,000+ retail locations via partnerships with CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, GNC, Bed Bath & Beyond, Amazon, and fashion retailers Revolve and Urban Outfitters. Hims & Hers has also been spending time to verticalize its business:. For example, it’s gradually shifting its pharmacy fulfillment services in-house, away from its Truepill-powered operations.

Amazon, Instacart, CVS, Walmart, Kroger, and Best Buy are just some of the many retailers with in-house ad networks. Between 2020 and 2021, the number of CPG brands working with retail media networks to gain access to first-party data nearly doubled from 33% to 62%, according to an October 2021 survey by Merkle.

Walmart and Instacart wield offline grocery data as a competitive advantage for CPG brand budgets. Walmart boasts the No. 1 brick-and-mortar business and the No. 2 ecommerce business in the US, which generate an unmatched trove of online and offline purchase data on a cross-category basis, with particular strength in grocery.

Other major stores like Walmart, Best Buy, and The Home Depot will close again this year but haven’t committed to a future plan yet, per the Wall Street Journal. What this means: Early openings likely began as a way to get more consumers in stores to compete with the rising popularity of online shopping on platforms like Amazon.

Trendspotting: There’s been a cluster of corporate metaverse filings since Facebook’s rebrand to Meta, including companies like Walmart and Nike, according to CNBC. Still confused about what the metaverse is? Click here to read our primer. We saw this coming: CVS’ filing aligns with our prediction that a retail player would be the first large healthcare player to dip its toes into the metaverse.

Some retailers have begun to address this: Walmart, for instance, has added nearly 1,400 charging stations at its stores in 41 states. This is still a small number—Walmart had over 4,700 stores in January 2022—but it hints at the possibilities. EV Charging stations can lead to incremental visits.

Walmart and Pinduoduo will likely add to this phenomenon in the coming years. Within the duopoly itself, Google’s more challenging year led to a share decline from 28.9% to 27.5%, although it remained well ahead of Facebook worldwide.

Those companies moving up the ranks this year include Snapchat, Roku, and Walmart. Pandora, Yelp, and IAC shifted down. Next year, we expect Hulu to pull ahead of Verizon Media Group to take the No. 5 spot, while Snapchat and Walmart will continue pulling ahead to tie for seventh place in 2023.

“Existing Instacart partners like Walmart and Kroger are expanding their own delivery capabilities, which could slow growth coming from grocery delivery,” noted Blake Droesch, analyst at Insider Intelligence.

Other retailers or payment providers could follow Walmart and Amazon’s lead in developing a native stablecoin. This could further dampen Bitcoin’s future as a payment method, but based on Meta’s progress with Diem, there’s likely a long regulatory road ahead before company-backed cryptos achieve mass adoption and implementation.

Included Health partners with employers like AmeriGas, Walmart, and Target to either provide their employees with telehealth or healthcare navigation services. Although Amazon hasn’t grown as rapidly in the employer space as its peers, there’s still a lot of expansion opportunities among US employers of all sizes interested in boosting telehealth access for employees.